The majority of sick children in Nigeria are first seen by a private retailer, especially children from poor and rural households. These retailers often have knowledge and inventory gaps that prevent them from properly diagnosing and dispensing the correct treatment for pediatric diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia, the three most common causes of child mortality in Nigeria, which kill over 300,000 children each year. This innovative model aims to use market incentives to institutionalize peer training among Nigeria’s private medicine retailers and their membership associations to improve treatment rates for childhood illnesses. Driven by oversight and eventual ownership of supervision and training from government and its regulatory body, private retailer associations will be tooled to routinely coach and mentor their members on the management of childhood illnesses, while also directly connecting retailers to affordable, high-quality suppliers of treatments. Throughout the model, market-based incentives for each stakeholder are key to share costs and realize gains (financial and impact) so that activities sustain beyond GCC’s funding.
