Delivering the Foundation’s goodwill message, Onyeka Igwebuike, Deputy Director for Strategy, Planning and Management at the Nigeria Country Office, revealed that TAConnect’s story began long before its registration, with a question about how technical assistance could serve states better.
“I know everybody sees five years,” Onyeka Igwebuike told the anniversary gathering, “but for the Gates Foundation, this is an eight-year journey.” With those words, the Deputy Director for Strategy, Planning and Management at the Foundation’s Nigeria Country Office pulled back the curtain on TAConnect’s pre-history: the years of research, partner consultations, and design thinking that preceded the organization Nigeria’s health sector celebrates today.
The Foundation, she recalled, had recognized a gap in how technical assistance reached partners at the state level and asked itself a disruptive question: how do you select local partners who are closer to the narrative and closer to the context, and can therefore deliver better value to the communities they serve? The design effort that followed, led by Dr. Charity Chenge, whose presence Igwebuike warmly acknowledged, deliberately inverted the traditional model. Rather than diagnosing a state’s problem from afar and arriving with a pre-selected partner, TAConnect would let states identify their own priorities and then co-select the partners best placed to solve them.
“So today we celebrate not only five years of existence, but five years of purposeful impact,” she said, describing the team’s work as phenomenal and noting a distinction few implementing organizations anywhere can claim: transformative results backed not only by programme data but by national surveys.
The journey, Igwebuike said, reflects a belief that has always guided the Foundation: that sustainable progress is achieved when strong local institutions are empowered to lead. TAConnect, she declared, is a testament to local leadership, technical excellence, partnership, and a shared commitment to improving lives. She singled out the leadership of Executive Director Dr. Lilian Anomnachi, observing that “the level of excellence she demanded of her team” translated directly into the quality of work delivered at every engagement.
Looking forward, she affirmed that the work of strengthening Nigeria’s health system (equitable access to primary health care, maternal and child health, expanded immunization, resilient systems) remains as important as ever, and must continue through deepened partnership with government and partners on the ground. “Your work is making a difference,” she concluded. “On behalf of the Gates Foundation, I congratulate the TAConnect team, and we look forward to the next five years.”
