Gates Foundation and MTN launch AI maternal health platform to reach 500,000 women by 2030 in Nigeria, which accounts for about 30% of maternal deaths

The initiative, called the Nigeria Maternal Health Multiplier, will also equip 5,000 frontline health workers with tools to spot pregnancy and childbirth complications earlier, and connect 500 health facilities to more consistent care standards.

Nigeria accounts for nearly 30% of maternal deaths worldwide, even as the country has cut those deaths over the past decade. Globally, maternal deaths have dropped 40% since 2000, but progress has stalled, and the risk of dying in childbirth in sub-Saharan Africa remains roughly 250 times higher than in Western Europe. Only 59% of Nigerian women complete four or more antenatal care visits, according to the initiative, so warning signs of complications often go undetected until it’s too late.

The platform has three parts: AI- and phone-based decision support for both health workers and mothers; affordable smartphones and mobile data; and upgraded connectivity at health facilities. It builds on Nigeria’s existing Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative, run by the Federal Ministry of Health under its Sector-Wide Approach.

“AI has enormous potential to improve health, but only if its benefits reach the people who stand to gain the most,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation. “Left to the market alone, potential tends to benefit those who can already afford it, not the people who need it most. That’s where philanthropy has a role to play: not as a substitute for investment, but as a catalyst for it.”

MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita said the goal is to make maternal health “more personalized, predictive and accessible” as AI develops. “We can put trusted, locally relevant health insights directly into the hands of mothers and healthcare professionals, tailored to their unique needs and languages,” he said. “Starting in Nigeria, our ambition is to demonstrate a scalable model for improving maternal and child health outcomes across Africa.”

Nigerian officials framed the deal as an answer to a systems problem rather than a technology gap. Dr. Bosun Tijani, the country’s minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy, said the biggest barrier to service delivery in Nigeria (like health, agriculture, or education) has rarely been a lack of new tools, but a lack of focus on the basic systems needed to get people to actually use them.

Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health and social welfare, said strengthening primary health care and the frontline workers who deliver it is central to the country’s health reforms. “Strengthening primary healthcare and empowering the frontline health workers who deliver it are core to our health sector reforms,” he said, adding that partnerships that work with existing health systems, rather than around them, are what’s needed to reach mothers “still falling through the cracks.”

The four-year partnership starts with about $25 million in direct and in-kind funding from 2026 through 2030, split between the Gates Foundation and MTN. Both organizations said they expect the initial investment to draw in additional funding and support expansion into other African markets over time.

MTN is contributing its connectivity infrastructure, device distribution networks, mobile financial services, and local market execution experience. The Gates Foundation is bringing its work in maternal and child health, digital health innovation, and what it calls responsible AI.

The launch is the Gates Foundation’s second major AI-in-Africa health push this year. In January, the foundation and OpenAI unveiled a $50 million “Horizon1000” partnership aimed at integrating AI tools into primary health clinics, starting in Rwanda before expanding to other countries. That effort was similarly aimed around closing gaps left by health worker shortages and shrinking foreign aid budgets.