Michael Efetobore Atima, a health advocate with a background in Business Administration and actuarial science, has transitioned into global health. He holds a master's degree in Global Health Delivery from a Rwandan university and supports United States foreign-assistance programming in Abuja. Atima's work focuses on sectors where public health meets public money. His experience in actuarial science taught him to price risk, and he began to see health as an economic problem as much as a medical one.
Atima's journey into global health led him to Nigeria Health Watch in 2017, where he spent over six years turning health data into actionable messages for policymakers and citizens. He wrote on 'sin' taxes as a way to fund health, an argument that remains valid today. Taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks can reduce consumption of products driving non-communicable diseases and raise revenue. However, Nigeria's mistake is that the revenue enters the general pool and disappears.
Atima's work on maternal deaths, including the RICOM3 project, taught him that many maternal deaths are caused by indirect factors such as hypertension, anaemia, and other conditions that could have been detected and managed before or during pregnancy. The RICOM3 collaboration focused on these causes, and Atima documented how a non-governmental organisation in Ebonyi State changed outcomes for new mothers through community-level follow-up.
Atima studied at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, where he learned that data is treated as a management tool, not a reporting ritual. Community health workers, facilities, and district teams know their numbers, and leaders are held accountable. He also worked with Partners In Health as a technical consultant, co-leading an assessment of a cooperative's impact on vulnerable households.
Programme evaluation is crucial in Atima's current role, ensuring that programs meet their intended purpose, comply with standards, and deliver results. Evaluation is a critical tool to keep promises to taxpayers and communities served. Atima has been part of a team that delivered programme evaluations, translating effort into meaningful impact.
Many Nigerian institutions view evaluation as fault-finding, but Atima believes it should be seen as learning, not punishment. A good evaluation identifies what to scale, fix, and stop. In the private sector, product lines are evaluated for performance, and public programmes deserve the same discipline. Donor funding for health and development is tightening, and Nigerian governments will increasingly need to fund programmes themselves.
Atima's research focuses on health policy and health systems, co-authoring peer-reviewed work on behavioural health crisis response, chronic disease management, and emergency response coordination. He serves as an editor and peer reviewer for international journals, protecting the quality of evidence in the field. Atima advises young Nigerians to learn hard skills alongside their passion and write to build a record of their ideas.
Key points
- Health should be seen as an economic problem as well as a medical one.
- Programme evaluation is crucial to ensure that programs meet their intended purpose and deliver results.
- Nigerian governments will increasingly need to fund health and development programmes themselves, requiring discipline to justify allocations.
