NIGERIA: AMBASSADOR MEETS WITH PLANNING MINSTER TO DISCUSS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 000744

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR OES/IHA AND OGAC
DEPT PASS USAID FOR GH/OHA AND AFR/SD
CDC FOR NCIRD/GID/DEEB
TREASURY FOR PETERS, IERONIMO AND HALL
BAGHDAD FOR DUNDAS MCCULLOUGH

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TBIO KISL PGOV KHIV ECON KOCI EAID PREL NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: AMBASSADOR MEETS WITH PLANNING MINSTER TO DISCUSS
PEPFAR FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE OF U.S.
GOVERNMENT


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Ambassador met with the head of the National
Planning Commission April 9 to discuss need for a President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Country Partnership
Framework (CPF) Agreement and the way forward towards achieving one
in the near future. Ambassador and Minister for Planning
Shamsuddeen Usman agreed that health was an essential area within
national development planning and required an interministerial
approach to attain sustainability in health services - complemented
by engagement with civil society organizations. Both also cited the
need to bring in best practices from other countries' efforts to
boost the fight against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. The Minister committed
to setting up a joint working group, which would meet soon and then
bring in Nigerian participants from the regional, state and local
levels, in part to identify what was working (and not) to leverage
existing in-country best practices. He would also bring in the
Governors Forum. Addressing his broader planning responsibilities,
Minister Usman said the GON was looking to achieve near-term
concrete goals, with a strengthened emphasis on monitoring and
evaluation. He said he had been citing USAID as a model for the
latter. Referring to the Paris Declaration, he stressed the
importance of unifying the continuing wide variety of accounting and
reporting formats used by different donors. Mission Director agreed
to work closely with Usman and staff as they mobilized coordination
efforts in support of the Seven Point Agenda of President Yar'Adua.
END SUMMARY.


2. (U) Ambassador met with Minister Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman at the
National Planning Commission (NPC) on April 9, accompanied by AID
Mission Director and Economic Counselor. Usman was accompanied by
several of his senior staff, including PermSec Mongye and
International Cooperation Director Bahaya. Dr. Usman welcomed the
Ambassador by saying he was impressed by the "new style" she had
brought to U.S. engagement with Nigeria and praised the way she had
been reaching out proactively, not only with government ministers,
but also with villagers and others. She was projecting the image of
the U.S. as "a humane and approachable country" to Nigerians. Usman
also lauded the "image change," perceived in Nigeria and elsewhere,
with the coming into office of the Obama Administration.

PEPFAR FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT
--------------


3. (SBU) Ambassador briefed Usman on USG Team Nigeria's Framework
for Partnership with the GON, which aims to support the goals of the
GON Seven Point Agenda. Health is a major part of the USG's efforts
in Nigeria, and we were looking to partner with the GON more
concretely in that arena. The Ambassador referred to the PEPFAR
Country Partnership Framework (CFP)Paper presented late last year
and her letter to Usman in February 2009 proposing a partnership
strategy. She had noted that health had not been identified as a
focus area in the GON's 2020 Vision. (Usman and his PermSec
acknowledged that was a serious oversight and said health would be
added in to their Vision 2020 planning document).


4. (SBU) The USG was interested in working with the GON within an
interministerial framework to improve coordination and
sustainability of HIV/AIDS control and prevention efforts. While
the CPF framework would likely include the Ministries of Health,
Education, Finance, and Women's Affairs, the National Planning
Commission was the obvious coordinating body within the GON,
especially as the counterpart organization for donor coordination,
she noted. The Ambassador said that the USG was looking for the
best way to bring our resources and planning and fuse with the GON's
vision and its own resources. We were looking for a true
partnership, not with the U.S. leading, but with both sides working
together, she added. A CPF would be a mutual document. The U.S.
side envisioned wraparounds as key components, along with engagement
with women, youth and the media.

THE WAY FORWARD
--------------


5. (SBU) Dr. Usman welcomed the initiative towards a framework
agreement, and said the Planning Commission would be pleased to help
toward its realization. He stressed that health and education were
seen together within the GON development vision. He said it was

ABUJA 00000744 002 OF 002


"interesting and exciting" that the U.S. was the first to come to
the GON with a strategic approach to working together. He agreed
with the Ambassador to form a Ministerial working group that would
involve the concerned GON ministries and the various USG agencies
working on HIV/AIDS. He already had agreement from the Minister of
Health to move forward. He suggested involving state-level
representatives, as they work with local government authorities to
ensure implementation. Initially, the GON would convene internally,
the NPC would then move quickly to meet with the involved USG
agencies and then bring in the ministries and other parties, likely
to include representatives from all geographic zones to ensure
clarity as to where states' efforts were working, not working, or
could use improvement. The NPC and the USG Team could make a joint
presentation to the larger group. Usman also agreed that joint
monitoring efforts made sense as the CPF agreement got up and
running and could be applied in other areas as well. As the process
moved forward, it would be important for governors to be involved
and to visit other states, to see and to share what was working. He
agreed to the importance of involving community and women's
organizations and the media in anti-HIV/AIDS efforts under the
emerging agreement.

GON PLANNING APPROACH
--------------


6. (SBU) Speaking more broadly about his area of responsibility,
Usman said the NPC's role was to support "strategic planning, not
state planning." It was up to the individual substantive ministers
to set specific targets to be achieved by 2011, with the NPC
providing technical assistance to put those efforts in a
comprehensive and achievable framework. The government had a lot of
challenges before it, and sometimes officials at the director and
deputy director levels tried to hang onto their turf, but Usman was
determined to effect coordination, including through coordination
with key donors and also by working with donors like USAID to ensure
that best practices were identified and put into practice.
Admittedly, there was skepticism about the Seven Point Agenda, due
to past failures to produce results, but the GON was committed to
clear targets and associated monitoring and evaluation (M & E).
USAID and the EU were seen as models for M & E, Usman said, and he
was open to any technical assistance that might help the GON reach
its near-term goals and accelerate development efforts.

DONOR COORDINATION
--------------


7. (SBU) Usman noted that he had just completed a term on the board
of the African Economic Research Consortium, which was supported by
15 public and private sector donors, all of which utilized different
accounting and reporting formats. Citing the Paris Declaration, he
stressed the importance of unifying such donor means of
communications. USAID Mission Director agreed to keep close contact
with Usman and his senior staff as they worked to improve donor
coordination and monitoring and evaluation across the board.
Ambassador and Mission Director confirmed the USG commitment to
broader donor coordination even as the USG worked bilaterally with
the GON on the PERFAR Partnership Framework Agreement.


8. (SBU) COMMENT: The NPC's Usman appears fully committed to
creating and effecting a workable agreement. Ambassador is sending
Usman a follow-up letter to confirm key points agreed to in this
discussion. Ambassador will be sending the follow-up letter to
Usman to not only reconfirm discussion but to continue to encourage
his leading the formation of a strategic Inter-Ministerial group
that would advance the CPF and other health and social issues such
as education and polio. This opening with the NPC Minister would
allow for another US-GON working group under the Mission's Framework
for Partnership and hopefully get the GON to improve its
coordination and financial commitment to these issues. END
COMMENT.


9. (U) This cable was coordinated with Consulate Lagos.

SANDERS