Dr Olu (he/him), or simply Olu, has over three decades experience in the public health sector with expertise in nutrition, health care financing including performance-based financing, primary health care and health systems. He currently works as an independent consultant in Abuja Nigeria.
Before transiting to full time consultancy, Dr Olu served as the pioneer project manager for the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project that was a departure from the public led delivery of nutrition services to engaging the private sector through performance-based contracts. Prior to this, for seven years Dr Olu was the project coordinator for the Nigeria States Health Investment Project which introduced performance-based financing to the health sector in Nigeria. During this period, he doubled as the pioneer Head of Health Financing (HF) at the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) working to establish the first Health Financing Division in the public health sector in Nigeria. The HF Division collaborated with several development partners on financing for primary health care. Dr Olu was also on the Country Coordinating Group of the Joint Learning Network (JLN) for Nigeria and worked extensively with colleagues from R4D on several products and the establishment of the Nigeria JLN with the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Previously, Dr Olu was head of research and nutrition desks at the NPHCDA dealing with diverse issues like design and conduct of nutrition surveys, developing manuals and tools for community health workers, engagement of university researchers for health systems research. At the initial stages of his career with the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Olu worked in the Nutrition Division handling such tasks as the control of micronutrient deficiencies (with UNICEF) especially iodine and vitamin A, development of standards for fortification and control using supplementation (vitamin A) and the first National Nutrition Policy for Nigeria. From 2000 to 2006, Dr Olu was in the newly established North Central Zone of the NPHCDA and was involved in community engagements assisting communities to establish managerial structures for primary health care and use appropriate tools to diagnose health problems and plan for interventions.
Dr. Olu earned a PhD in human nutrition from the University of Ibadan specializing in nutritional anaemia in adolescents and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree (health economics) from the University of Cape Town. He is conversant in English and beginner level French. He currently lives in Abuja, Nigeria.
Dr Olu was the lead consultant for the R4D Nutrition Resource Tracking Study in Nigeria that attempted to quantify the flow of resources to nutrition. He is currently working on the Sustainable Financing for Nutrition (SUSTAIN) project in Nigeria involving four states and a collaboration between R4D and the World Bank to support the 12 states implementing the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria to develop a sustainable nutrition financing framework.
Dr Olu has contributed to several manuals covering nutrition, and other aspects of primary health care and published with other colleagues’ articles on health financing in peer reviewed journals.
