Lagos Business School on Sunday commenced its annual MDI Program for Health Leaders and Managers in Africa at Protea Kuramo Waters, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The week-long in-residence training program is organized in partnership with the Management Development Institute (MDI) and facilitated by Johnson & Johnson. It is designed to improve the effectiveness of health systems by enhancing leadership and management skills of professionals devoted to delivering healthcare services to underserved populations.

"Much focus has been on the technical areas of skills development in the healthcare sector. With MDI Health Leadership Program, our objective is to build a new crop of professionals who possess the technical knowledge as well as business and managerial skills to deliver high-quality healthcare service," said Professor Olayinka David-West, the Academic Director of Lagos Business School.

With the focus of this year’s program being ‘Capacity Improvement for Maternal, Newborn, and Community Healthcare Workers’, the program allows participants to learn and understand the critical challenges facing the sector while also working together to provide workable solutions towards solving these problems.

In her remarks, Clare Omatseye, the President of Healthcare Federation of Nigeria and CEO, JNC International, highlighted the issues facing the healthcare industry in Africa and the importance of innovation and disruption in tackling the identified challenges.

Participants in the MDI Health Leadership Program will gain access to management tools, frameworks, and knowledge that will enable them to increase the quantity and quality of health services they provide while expanding access to healthcare.

The MDI program, which is administered by the Global Business School Network (GBSN) has since inception in 2006, graduated over 1400 participants from 39 African countries.