Nigerian digital health startup GoMed has partnered with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Lagos State Government to launch a digital self-care platform for students at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). The initiative is designed to expand access to sexual and reproductive health services, including contraceptives, professional counselling, and pharmacy support, all delivered through a mobile-first platform.
Addressing A Persistent Access Gap
Young Nigerians face some of the highest rates of unintended pregnancy and unmet need for contraception in the world. Health experts and policymakers have long pointed to a mix of cost, distance, stigma, misinformation, and confidentiality concerns as the main barriers preventing young people from seeking reproductive health services. These barriers have contributed to consequences including unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted infections, and interrupted education.
The new Self-Care Platform is built to tackle each of these obstacles directly. Through the programme, students will receive free contraceptives and other reproductive health commodities supplied by the Lagos State Ministry of Health and UNFPA. The platform also offers discounted health products, confidential consultations with registered pharmacists, and discreet delivery of medicines and health products to campuses and student hostels.
How The Platform Works
Students can access trusted sexual and reproductive health information through two existing UNFPA-backed digital tools integrated into the rollout. Through U-Plan, students can chat directly with qualified family planning service providers to receive accurate information and address their concerns, while also being able to engage confidentially with GoMed’s registered pharmacists for judgement-free guidance on medicines and other health products.
Beyond information access, the platform’s core value lies in removing the “last mile” gap between commodity availability and actual uptake. The partnership advances UNFPA’s goal of ending unmet need for family planning by addressing the challenge of transforming the availability of free family planning commodities into increased uptake among young people.
What It Means For Nigeria’s Digital Health Sector
The GoMed-UNFPA partnership adds to a small but growing list of Nigerian health-tech ventures moving beyond consumer telemedicine into public-private commodity distribution models backed by government and multilateral institutions. For GoMed, the UNILAG rollout offers a template for scaling into other tertiary institutions across Lagos State and, eventually, the rest of the country, positioning the startup within a national push to close reproductive health access gaps through technology rather than physical infrastructure alone.
Whether the model succeeds will likely depend on adoption rates among students in this first phase, and how effectively the platform’s confidentiality guarantees translate into real behavioural change on campus.
