2016

-Ongoing

Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI): Promoting Health, Providing Strategic, Catalytic and Innovative Support to India’s National Health Mission

The Royal Norwegian Embassy

NIPI

Providing strategic, catalytic, and innovative support to India’s National Health Mission (NHM), NIPI is testing scalable interventions in Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir.

2016-2018 (March), 2019 (July)-Ongoing

Norway and India share a common vision and stand committed to fostering collaborative efforts to solve priority health issues. In 2006, the two democracies started a health initiative called Norway-India Partnership Initiative (NIPI) with a vision for providing strategic, catalytic, and innovative support to India’s National Health Mission.

During the past 17 years of its implementation, NIPI has envisaged a unique model of development cooperation and an efficient mechanism of testing our ‘innovative ideas in public health settings’. NIPI has demonstrated the importance of aligning with national priorities, and leveraging local expertise through a strong governance framework at the national and state levels using the health system approach.

With a view to further strengthening the relationship between our two countries, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, agreed to extend the cooperation with a Phase IV of NIPI.

As a first step, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on 1st July 2024 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the Government of India, the Government of Norway and the supported states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir. 

Impact

  • Scaling up innovations: NIPI’s work over 10 years of designing, pilot testing and demonstration of innovations, has created a mechanism for innovation testing and scale-up. 10 out of 11 innovations of NIPI were scaled up by Government of India
  • Support to State Health Societies for strengthening various health programs of National Health Mission:
    a. Home Based New-Born Care (HBNC)
    b. Special New Born Care Units (SNCUs) and SNCU online system
    c. Family Participatory Care for newborns
    d. Pre-service Nursing Education
    e. Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) and pediatric care services
    f. Capacity building through Dakshata
  • Collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India: Development of over 25 policy documents, guidelines, and training manuals; Covered more than 700,000 newborn & infants and over 5,000 mothers; trained over 40,000 health functionaries.
  • Sustainable mechanism of innovations: For every Norwegian Kroner (NOK) invested by NIPI, the Government of India invested NOK 19.50 from the state health funds for NIPI innovations

Objectives

  • Innovate: Demonstrate innovative approaches for Health System Strengthening in Sexual, Reproductive, New-born, Child and Adolescent health 
  • Replicate & Scale: Provide technical assistance in scale up of NIPI and NHM demonstrated innovative practices in RMNCAH and to ensure institutionalisation of state innovation hubs 
  • Collaborate: Foster institutional collaborations on Digital Public Health Goods in RMNCAH 

Ms Arti Ahuja

Arti Ahuja

Director

Retired from the Indian Administrative Services, Ms Ahuja has over 34 years of experience in administration, policy formulation, project management, and leadership across the public sector. Her expertise spans health systems, nutrition, women’s workforce participation, vulnerable populations, petrochemicals, and social sector programs. She has held several senior positions in the Government of India, including Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, where she led reforms to strengthen worker welfare and represented India at the G20 Employment Working Group; Secretary, Ministry of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, where she initiated the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme; and Secretary, Women & Child Development, where she directed large-scale nutrition and empowerment initiatives, strengthening the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). As Secretary of Health, Government of India she played a pivotal role in India’s COVID-19 response, launched the National Digital Health Mission, and advanced national programs on TB and AIDS control. She continues to advise on gender, climate change, and nutrition, contributes to national and international publications, and teaches public policy and nutrition at leading academic institutions. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health; Master’s in Public Policy from Princeton University; Master’s in Economics (Gold Medallist) from Panjab University, and is a Bachelor of Law from the University of Delhi.

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