HEALTH

Health is fundamental to the social and economical development, however, inequalities in health; mainly between social groups in population have been continuing all over the world, these disparities are significant in India the second most populace country, where socially marginalized, economically deprived and politically fringed group of population; particularly living in remote-rural areas and urban slums are yet to be provided with accessible; affordable and acceptable primary health cure service of high quality as well as basic health information and education the role of non-governmental organization become crucial in reaching the un-reached and hard-to-reach groups of population through cost effective community-based and women- centred programme as well as to ensure the integration of these population groups with the availability of governmental health programmes.

IISD has been mainly focusing on three significant and interrelated components of health;

• Reproductive Health;
• Adolescent Health
• Gender Women and Health (GWH)    

Reproductive Health

The International Conference on Population and development (ICPD), 1994, marked a paradigm shift from family planning to the broader reproductive health agenda, which requires action plan to provide high quality services improving the existing care, meeting the unmet needs and responding the diverse needs of user.

IISD has been focusing on meeting the needs of individual women and men, rather than achieving/supporting demographic targets.

The programme of action outlined by ICPD, with focus on four related areas i) universal education ii) reduction of infant and child mortality iii) reduction of martial mortality  as well as iv) access to reproductive and sexual health services, including family planning have been guiding IISD’s activities at local-regional-national level.

The activities undertaken by the organization include; information, education, concealing, communication and service on reproductive health; services for safe, responsible and healthy choices, decisions and impact.

IISD has been propounding the new approach to health as evolved and enunciated by the international conferences and summit; including, 1994 ICPD, 1995, world summit for Social development, 1995; fourth world conference on women. The new approach emphasis on empowering women and providing them with greater choices; though increased access quality education and health services; skilled development and self employment programmes as well as their gull involvement in policy and decision-making process at all levels. The corollary to this recognition of empowering women to improve the quality of life for every one is the minimization and elimination of gender-based violence and hegimonistic/particularly harmful traditional practices.

Adolescent Reproductive Health

The special reproductive health needs of adolescent have been largely ignored in India like in other developed and developing countries as they are recognized as a distinct population group by policy makers, programme managers and health care providers. Adolescent poses new challenges to health and development owning to their vulnerability to adapt risky heath behaviour. The vulnerability becomes unmanageable when adolescent and young people face neglected abandonment and exploitation. The needs of adolescent are also highly diversified. These diversities are also reflected in their family and socio-economic backgrounds.

IISD has been conducting and supporting programmes to meet the special and diverse health needs of adolescent, including their education and concealing, promotion of responsible and healthy choices and behaviour, fostering gender relation and the right of adolescent to have information, education and care on their health needs underlines IISD programmes, protection from violence, abuse exploitation and discrimination, free from substance abuse. The thrust is on strengthening positive, social and cultural values among adolescent and young people to resist the risky behaviour and unhealthy pressures.              

REPRODUCTIVE AND CHILD HEALTH

Objectives

The broad objective of the project is to make reproductive and child health an integral part of social development in the project area, leading to the empowerment of women beneficiaries.

The specific objectives of the project will be as follows:

• Reduce maternal morbidity and mortality
• Reduce infant mortality and U5MR
• Widen the coverage, outreach and impact of family welfare messages

Background and Justification

The International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, Egypt held in September, 1994 recommended that the aim of family planning programme must be to enable couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to do so and to ensure informed choices and make available a full range of safe and effective methods. The success of population education and family planning programme in a variety of settings demonstrates that informed individuals everywhere can and will act responsibly in the light of their own needs and those of their families and communities. The principle of informed free choice is essential to the long-term success of family planning programmes.

Under the Target Oriented approach, the national level targets in India in respect of different family planning methods were used to be fixed in consultation with the States/Union Territories, keeping in view the long- term demographic goals and past performance levels of the States/Union Territories. These targets, however, became an end in itself and not the means to bring about the expected decline in the birth rates. The target based system followed up to 31st March, 1996, suffered from three constraints which were likely to come in the way of its adopting the reproductive health approach. These were: i) non-availability or poor quality of certain services, ii) inadequate equipment and supplies at the PHCs and CHCs and iii) gender bias and low status of women in service provision.  The needs of the individual client were not properly met. Thus, the numerical method-specific targets provided such type of demographic planning which is against the democratic ethos of the country. Thus, a need arose to introduce decentralised participatory approach with emphasis on clients’ satisfaction and quality of services under Target Free Approach doing away the target oriented approach.

The five States of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa; which constitute 44% of the total population of Indian in 1996, will constitute 48% of the total in 2016, according to projections. These States will contribute 55% of the total increase in population of the country during the period 1996-2016. The way these States perform, will determine the time and size the country’s population will stabilise. In each State, experiences have to be studied and replicated to achieve a faster decline in their mortality and fertility rates.