Leveraging Diaspora Ability to Expand Local Coverage of Health Insurance in Nigeria
The population of Diaspora Nigeria continues to increase. Over the last decade or so, the country has witnessed a steady rise in the number of Nigerians migrating to other climes ostensibly in search of greener pastures.
This trend is particularly fuelled by the ” japa ” syndrome which is now assuming the epidemic proportion. According to Africa Check, Nigeria has over 15million of her citizens living in the Diaspora as of 2017. This estimate has continued to increase.
While some have argued that it signifies all that is wrong with the Nigerian economy and nation, it is, however, our considered view that the burgeoning diaspora size portends immense benefits, not so much danger, for the country.
The country has been benefiting and continues to benefits from huge remittances from her citizens in the diaspora. For example, agustoresearch.com affirms that, Nigeria has over $21 billion annually in inflows from diaspora remittances, making it the second-largest recipient of remittances on the continent, only after Egypt.
Amongst the purposes of the remittance is health or medical care. Many Nigerians abroad are known to send money back home for the medical care and support of their loved ones who may be parents, brothers, sisters, or even friends.
While there is no hard data to support this view, it is also generally assumed that such financial supports are usually diverted by the recipients or beneficiaries to other purposes than its primary intention of health or medical care.
This therefore creates an opportunity for policy operators and industry players in both the public and private sectors who are responsible for or saddled with leading the growth objective of health insurance organizations to consider finding the right strategies to effectively leverage the opportunity offered by the intentionality of Diasporans to support their loved ones back at home and also the “remittance application gap” to provide direct subscription of their loved ones back home onto health insurance plans.
Doing this will not only ensure proper and judicious funds application, it would also help to ensure that we expand local coverage of health insurance as more people are folded into the net nationally.
This way, we can also accelerate our journey towards the ultimate national goal of universal health coverage. And what is more, the Naira is further strengthened with more dollar inflow to the country.
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