Building sustainable geospatial capacity for health requires more than training, it requires institutional ownership, aligned partnerships, and nationally validated learning pathways. Over the past eight months, Solina Health, in collaboration with the National Space Research and Development Agency and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, implemented the Geospatial Landscape Insights in Priority Geographies Project, designed to develop a portable, replicable geospatial training curriculum and institutionalized learning pathways that equip health data teams with critical skills to support health programs.
At the project close-out workshop held in Abuja on February 24, 2026, implementing partners, government agencies, and development partners gathered to reflect on key project milestones, lessons learned, and the sustainability pathway for institutionalizing geospatial training within national systems.
The project delivered four major outcomes:
- A comprehensive national needs assessment across 19 institutions, identifying critical gaps in data cleaning, spatial analysis, and inter-agency collaboration
- Development and validation of the National Geospatial Data for Health Curriculum, structured across foundational, intermediate, and advanced competency levels
- Establishment of the National Geospatial Knowledge Hub, hosted by NASRDA, serving as a centralized repository for curriculum materials, datasets, and curated geospatial health resources. The hub is accessible here.
- Successful pilot of a hybrid training model combining self-paced online learning with in-person GIS laboratory sessions for national-level health professionals.
The close-out workshop provided a platform to share implementation insights and formally present the sustainability plan, highlighting NASRDA’s formal role as the national custodian of the Geospatial Health Program, with responsibility for governance, curriculum adoption and updates, and integration into its routine training portfolio. Stakeholders reaffirmed the critical role of spatial intelligence in strengthening disease surveillance, optimizing immunization coverage, supporting malaria elimination efforts, and improving equitable resource allocation.
With endorsement from national institutions and strong multi-sector collaboration, this initiative advances Nigeria’s journey toward accredited, scalable, and policy-aligned geospatial capacity for health.
This project was implemented by Solina Health with institutional leadership from NASRDA and NPHCDA, and support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Dev-Afrique Development Advisors under the Umbrella Fund for Geospatial Interventions.
