The four-year partnership was announced at Semafor’s Next 3 Billion event, on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
A new initiative has been launched by the MTN Group Foundation and the Gates Foundation to help 500,000 Nigerian women access health guidance, equip 5,000 frontline health workers with tools to identify complications from pregnancy and childbirth early, and enable 500 health facilities to deliver more consistent, higher-quality maternal health care.
This follows the unveiling of the Nigeria Maternal Health Multiplier, a first-of-its-kind initiative in the West African country to improve maternal health outcomes through an integrated digital ecosystem connecting women, frontline health workers and primary health care facilities.
In a statement, the parties said the platform is designed to complement Nigeria’s ongoing maternal and child health reforms.
It will expand equitable access to high-quality maternal health care through three components: AI-enabled, phone-based decision support tools for both frontline health workers and mothers; affordable smartphones and mobile data; and improved connectivity at health care facilities.
“By strengthening access to timely information, care and follow-up services, the initiative aims to help more women receive quality maternal health care throughout pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period, particularly in underserved communities,” the statement said.
According to MTN Group and the Gates Foundation, the world has made progress on maternal survival, cutting deaths by 40% since 2000. But that progress has stalled, and where a woman lives still shapes whether she survives childbirth.
In sub-Saharan Africa, that risk is roughly 250 times higher than in Western Europe. While Nigeria has made progress in reducing maternal deaths over the past decade, a large burden remains: the country accounts for nearly 30% of all maternal deaths worldwide.
“Many of these deaths are preventable, but with only 59% of women completing four or more antenatal care visits, warning signs often go undetected until it’s too late. Both the scale of that challenge and the urgency it represents are why Nigeria was selected as the first market for implementation of the Maternal Health Multiplier,” the statement said.
Dr Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, said: “For too long, the biggest barrier to improving service delivery in Nigeria, whether in health, agriculture or education, has not been a lack of innovations, but a lack of focus on the foundational systems necessary to drive adoption. Partnerships like this reflect the kind of collaboration we want to see more of in Nigeria — one that puts the country’s digital transformation to work for the people who need it most.”
The Maternal Health Multiplier is designed to be affordable, reliable and consistent, and builds on Nigeria’s flagship Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative, being deployed by the Federal Ministry of Health under its Sector-Wide Approach.
“Strengthening primary healthcare and empowering the frontline health workers who deliver it are core to our health sector reforms,” said Dr Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health and social welfare.
“Partnerships that work with our existing health systems, rather than around them, are exactly what’s needed to reach mothers who are still falling through the cracks. We welcome this collaboration and look forward to it strengthening the work already under way.”
It begins with an initial investment of approximately $25 million between 2026 and 2030, including direct and in-kind contributions from the Gates Foundation and MTN.
This anchor investment is intended to catalyse additional funding and support future expansion into other markets over time, said the statement.
“The future of maternal health depends on ensuring that every mother, regardless of where she lives, can access the support she needs to make informed decisions throughout her journey. Technology is creating unprecedented opportunities to make healthcare more personalised, predictive and accessible,” said Ralph Mupita, MTN Group president and CEO.
“As artificial intelligence evolves, we can put trusted, locally relevant health insights directly into the hands of mothers and healthcare professionals, tailored to their unique needs and languages. Starting in Nigeria, our ambition is to demonstrate a scalable model for improving maternal and child health outcomes across Africa. The true value of innovation lies in its ability to improve lives and create better futures for generations to come.”
According to the statement, the partnership brings together MTN’s connectivity infrastructure, digital inclusion capabilities, mobile financial services, device distribution networks and local market execution expertise with the Gates Foundation’s experience in maternal, newborn and child health, digital health innovation, responsible AI, and evidence-based scale-up.
“AI has enormous potential to improve health, but only if its benefits reach the people who stand to gain the most,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation.
“Left to the market alone, potential tends to benefit those who can already afford it, not the people who need it most. That’s where philanthropy has a role to play: not as a substitute for investment, but as a catalyst for it.
“Programmes like the Maternal Health Multiplier are creating AI tools for, and putting them into the hands of, Nigerian mothers and frontline health workers, helping keep moms and their babies healthy.”
ICT and GovernanceGates FoundationBosun TijaniRalph MupitaDigital health NigeriaUN General Assembly
