The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) celebrated a successful twenty-year partnership between USAID, the Government of India (GOI), the Government of Uttar Pradesh, and other partners to deliver quality reproductive health and family planning services. The In-novations in Family Planning Services (IFPS) project is one of USAID s largest family planning projects in the world. By developing and testing innovative approaches to family planning and repro-ductive health, IFPS has advanced the GOI’s commitment to reorient and revitalize the country’s family planning services to benefit women, men, and their families. IFPS s objective is to increase access to and use of integrated reproductive health and family planning services, especially for vulnerable com-munities in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand.

In Uttar Pradesh, IFPS helped to create a state-led agency, the State Innovations in Family Planning Services Agency (SIFPSA), to realize the family planning goals through innovations and partnerships with government and multiple private sector partners. IFPS, SIFPSA, and USAID have worked to con-vert the high unmet need for family planning experienced by women and couples in the state into use of family planning and reproductive health services, through improved access to and quality of these ser-vices. Public-private partnership models like social marketing, a voucher scheme program, social fran-chising, and clinic-based non-governmental organization (NGO) projects have been an integral part of the most recent phase of the program.

Speaking at the celebratory event in Lucknow, USAID Mission Director Hammink said: The innovations in family planning that resulted from the partnership between USAID, the Government of India, the Government of Uttar Pradesh, civil society, and the community demonstrate that challenges can be addressed using local resources and solutions. India has become synonymous with innovation and the IFPS innovations demonstrate India s commitment to improving the health and lives of millions of people. In the future, USAID and India will continue to work together with multiple public and private sector partners to support innovative mechanisms to improve access to family planning and reproductive health services, not just in India, but around the world.

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