Under its Vision FP2020 program, the India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) is committed to providing contraceptive services to an additional 48 million users and averting 23.9 million births, one million infant deaths, and over 42,000 maternal deaths by 2020. To achieve this ambitious goal the MoHFW is looking to strengthen and expand its SM program to provide affordable and accessible essential health products to under-served segments of the health market.
JSI has entered into a three-year agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to serve as a Technical Support Group (TSG), a think-tank and resource unit, to help the government of India (GOI) develop a long-term vision for its comprehensive social marketing program.
The social marketing program evolved over decades and in 2007, a separate condom social marketing program was established under the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) to focus on HIV/STI prevention. Today, as part of their commitment to sustain gains, address performance gaps, and improve efficiencies across their socially marketed products, the GOI requested support from the BMGF to help align, develop, and execute a long-term vision to expand access and reach through social marketing of priority health products.
The focus of the TSG is to support the MoHFW and NACO in managing successful change towards reaching its vision for the social marketing of priority health products. The TSG provides organizational, managerial, and technical support to the MoHFW and NACO to address both supply- and demand-side dimensions for condoms and oral contraceptive pills. TSG would also aim to expand access to the basket of priority products including emergency contraceptive pills, pregnancy test kits, oral re-hydration salts, zinc tablets, IFA tablets, and sanitary napkins.
The goal of this project is to build the capacity of the GOI to improve the health and well-being of women and children through improved access to, and utilization of, high quality FP/HIV products and services. Market-based strategies and solutions, that engage the private sector, are intrinsic to TSG’s organizational, managerial and technical support to the MoHFW and NACO. Specifically, TSG will support the government to:
These efforts will result in improved capacity of the GOI to effectively coordinate, manage, and implement a harmonized and more progressive socially marketed program, effectively managed by MoHFW and NACO. Through a more clearly defined vision and executed road map, the TSG will enable more efficient processes and strategic partnerships with other private sector players to increase demand, uptake, sales, and use of socially marketed products among under-served populations.
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