Stakeholders in Nigeria’s health sector have renewed calls for stronger women’s representation in leadership and decision-making positions to improve healthcare outcomes across the country.
 
The call came as the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare (EWAH), a programme of The Commonwealth Institute Programme (TCI), formally launched its alumni network in Lagos.
 
The event brought together women previously honoured under the EWAH Awards platform to form a collaborative body aimed at sustaining impact, strengthening partnerships and advancing healthcare outcomes within and beyond Nigeria.
 
Speaking at the launch, Regional Representative for EWAH Awards Africa and Chief Executive Officer of LiveWell Initiative, Bisi Bright, said the alumni platform was created to ensure continuity beyond the awards and to foster long-term collaboration among honourees.
 
According to her, the EWAH programme recognises women who have made transformational contributions to healthcare and seeks to amplify their voices and impact across health systems.
 
Bright said the new platform was bringing together 20 women who had been recognised over two award cycles to create a network through which they could continue to advance healthcare.
 
She noted that although women make up more than 70 per cent of the global healthcare workforce, they remain underrepresented at top leadership and boardroom levels.
 
Bright said deliberate efforts were needed to close that gap, adding that more women should be represented at the table where critical decisions are made and on boards across the healthcare system.
 
She further disclosed that the initiative is expanding across Africa, with plans to establish similar alumni platforms in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Egypt to encourage cross-border collaboration among women healthcare leaders.
 
Also speaking, Favour Adeola Ilori, who represented the Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Health Management Agency, Emmanuella Zamba, described the EWAH initiative as an important platform for networking and knowledge exchange among women working across different areas of healthcare.
 
She acknowledged that although progress had been made in recognising women’s contributions, more work remained to be done to strengthen their participation across the sector.
 
In her remarks, Director of Operations at Pharma Symbiosis, Nkechi Ukaiwe, said the EWAH platform reflects the broad spectrum of women’s contributions to healthcare, from grassroots service delivery to global pharmaceutical leadership.