The COVID-19 pandemic in India was accompanied by an increase in domestic violence and sexual assault against women; the National Commission of Women recorded a 2.5 times increase in domestic violence between March and May 2020.² The pandemic also overwhelmed the health system and affected the performance of health care workers, with 53 percent of health workers at risk of psychological distress.³ MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics works with individuals, communities, and the public health system to respond to and mitigate COVID-19-exacerbated gender-based violence in communities and strengthen the primary health system’s capacity to deal with COVID-19 cases among newborns, adolescents, and women of reproductive age. MOMENTUM also bolsters community health workers’ resilience and self-efficacy around psychological well-being.

Learn how MOMENTUM has addressed disrupted health services for women and children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics works with partners in the states of Jharkhand and Karnataka to make health data collection more efficient and effective and make data more widely available for use in program budgeting, planning, and quality improvement monitoring. With our partners, we are developing a digital portal to monitor obstetric surgeries at health facilities. We are also collaborating with our partners to strengthen their health management information systems to improve data collection, quality, and monitoring related to cesarean deliveries.

The MOMENTUM-affiliated Saksham project also enhances health care for women and children through several digital interventions. A key digital initiative is the MOMENTUM dashboard, which integrates district-level Management Information Systems to create more comprehensive data, empowering state and district officials to make evidence-based decisions for maternal, newborn, and child health. Saksham also leverages community and facility-based platforms to create a cohesive digital ecosystem for communities and health facilities to improve maternal and child health.

Evidence suggests that integrating family planning and immunization services can lead to increased use of family planning, with no negative impact on immunization services.⁴ MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery is working with Suvita, an Indian organization, to include information on family planning for mothers in its digital immunization platform.

Forty-two percent of all women in India are currently using modern contraception, with sterilization the most common method: nearly one in three women of reproductive age have undergone the procedure.⁶ MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics partners with local organizations and providers in six Indian states—Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, and Karnataka—to help people access the information and services they need to make voluntary and informed decisions about family planning at every stage of their lives. This collaboration focuses on increasing awareness of long-acting reversible contraceptive methods, such as intrauterine devices, and working with public and private providers and individuals to address common myths and misconceptions about contraceptive methods through training and social behavior change efforts. The partnership also works with public and private providers to deliver high-quality and safe surgical methods of contraception, specifically for women during the postpartum and post-abortion periods and for men through no-scalpel vasectomies.

The MOMENTUM-affiliated SAMVEG project aims to fill critical gaps in health systems, encourage innovations, and scale up and sustain interventions for maternal, newborn, and child health. It focuses on India’s most vulnerable geographies, establishing partnerships with the private sector and professional bodies to leverage resources, improve program monitoring and oversight, and bridge gaps between policy and implementation. SAMVEG implements activities to reach vulnerable populations in Jharkhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttarakhand states with a focus on vulnerable geographies and poor-performing districts.

India is home to over 2 million nurse-midwives and nearly 1 million auxiliary nurse-midwives.⁸ As nurses are critical to delivering health care to women and children throughout the country, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership partners with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Indian Nursing Council, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to help the Indian national government and governments in several Indian states implement recommendations from the latest international guidance, including WHO’s State of the World’s Nursing Report 2020 and Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery 2021-2025 and UNFPA’s State of the World’s Midwifery Report 2021.

Using workforce data collected by the government, we assist India’s national government and select state governments in addressing issues that negatively impact services delivered by nurses and midwives. This collaboration allows us to identify gaps in relevant health policy and understand how policies are implemented, enabling us to make recommendations to national and state governments that align with global standards and help improve the quality of care that women and children receive.