The USAID Projects in India

Project Samvad collaborates with existing health system structures to build their capacity to employ video- and other ICT-enabled approaches to increase adoption of optimal maternal, infant, and child health and nutrition and family planning practices.

• Improve maternal and child health, with a focus on the mother’s nutrition in the first 1,000 days after the birth of the child
• Improve knowledge and use of modern contraceptive methods
• Empower communities to avail government services and entitlements

Project Samvad uses a low-cost, video-enabled, community-focused, participatory approach that empowers rural communities to share knowledge in a way that promotes the adoption of practices to improve health and nutrition outcomes. It collaborates with a variety of government, private, and civil society organizations to reach communities with focused messages. It designs locally relevant content, created by and for communities, to promote healthy behaviors on reproductive, maternal, and child health. The project has layered this community video approach as well as other ICT-enabled interventions within the existing extension systems of various government departments for greater penetration and impact.

The project also leverages key learnings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on nutrition-sensitive agriculture in Odisha being carried out in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, JSI-SPRING, VARRAT, Ekjut, D-Cor, and University College London. In the long run, the project aims to transition ownership and responsibility for funding and execution of the ICT-enabled approach to governments.

Click here to visit Samvad Reports and Resources.

• A target of 40000 new reaches directly through pico based video disseminations achieved 
• Achieved 36871 till March 2020
• Pico based disseminations on hold since April 2020; digital outreach started 

Shifted strategy from in-person video dissemination to virtual disseminations using WhatsApp and IVRS.

• Percentage of mothers of children under 2 who have correct knowledge of MIYCN practices
• Percentage of recently delivered women having 4+ antenatal check-ups in last pregnancy
• Percentage of women of reproductive age and their husband (15-34 years) who know about at least three modern family planning-spacing methods

OnionDev Technology Pvt. Ltd.: A sub-grantee, ODT provides a technological platform to run voice-based virtual outreach

Developed audio messages for IVRS servers in various vernacular languages. 

Digital Green is supplementing GoI's efforts to strengthen video-based SBCC initiatives on family planning and has disseminated videos in Hindi, Odia, and Chhattisgarhi in Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh on government run IVR lines.