SIFPSA Expansions

As Principal Secretary, Medical Health & Family Welfare I have had the pleasure of working with SIFPSA during the crucial period when it was involved in developing innovative models for delivery of reproductive & child health services, both through the public and private sector. I have also seen it grow into a key player in the RCH sector in UP. The impacts of the SIFPSA Project both in family planning and in reproductive health have been remarkable and today the increase in the contraceptive prevalence rate in SIFPSA districts is much higher than an average district in UP ! SIFPSA possesses strengths in fields as diverse as planning, implementation, management, monitoring, evaluation, capacity building, social marketing and communications. Together these elements combine to give SIFPSA the cutting edge to handle other large scale projects. With its established capacity and dynamic leadership, I see SIFPSA as an organization whose expertise can be used for implementing other health sector projects as well. I wish that SIFPSA continues to do the laudable work for improving the RCH services in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

New vistas have opened up for SIFPSA with the Government of India sanctioning a grant of Rs. 21 crores, to extend SIFPSA activities & replicate best practices evolved in seven additional district.

The fifth day of February, 2004, was a red-letter day for SIFPSA ! A project proposal to expand implementation of its decentralized reproductive & child health (RCH) activities to six additional districts of UP i.e. Bahraich, Bijnore, Bulandshahar, Lakhimpur Kheri, Muzaffarnagar & Pilibhit was presented to the Empowered Action Group (EAG) by Mr. J.S. Deepak, Executive Director, SIFPSA. The EAG endorsed SIFPSA's strategy of public-private partnership, its focus on quality and on decentralized programme management, to increase contraception levels and to improve reproductive & child health and approved the project. The seventh district, Lucknow, was added later.

The new programme of decentralized participatory planning (DPP) is to be implemented over a period of three years at a total cost of Rs. 21 crores. This initiative will provide an addition of rupees one crore per district, per year for the RCH sector. Implementation of DPP activities is expected to increase contraceptive prevalence in these districts, with a population of 20.5 million, by 4 percentage points on an average, which is more than double the current rate of increase !

This tranche of Rs. 21 crores from Government of India, represents, the first time ever that SIFPSA is receiving funds from a source other than USAID. With the prospect of additional funding under the EAG scheme for 13 more districts in the first quarter of the next financial year, it signifies a resounding vote of confidence in SIFPSA's capacity for programme implementation and its achievements. It also suggests that if SIFPSA works with focus and determination, it will not be too long before its activities cover the entire state of UP, carrying quality reproductive & child health services to the doorsteps of the under-served population in the entire state.