Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is one of the world’s largest private voluntary organizations, supporting international relief and development work in more than 100 countries and territories around the world. CRS has been working in India since 1946 and reaches vulnerable people through a network of partner organizations throughout India. The primary program sectors in which CRS India works are health, agricultural livelihoods, emergency relief and recovery, and anti-trafficking. Key approaches CRS applies in its work are robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning; innovative applications of ICT; partnering with government to strengthen service delivery systems; and targeting approaches to reach remote, vulnerable and marginalized populations. CRS places great emphasis on the quality of program design and implementation and on the quality of its internal control systems and those of its partners.

Currently CRS implements four health programs in Uttar Pradesh through local partners: a USAID-funded project aimed at improving immunization services for children and eradicating polio- the Core Group Polio Project is contributing to polio eradication by increasing population immunity and enhancing surveillance for Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) which is gold standard for detecting cases of wild polio virus; and an innovative mHealth project called the Reducing Maternal and Neonatal Deaths (ReMiND) that supports government community health workers and their supervisors (ASHA Workers and ASHA Sanginis) to improve counseling and data collection and strengthen supportive supervision. CRS has begun a new project that builds on lessons learned from ReMiND and reflects additional opportunities and needs: ReMiND Plus will leverage the involvement of key decision makers within the household, particularly men, and improve the quality of antenatal care in MCH services at community level with a particular emphasis on respectful care. In UP, CRS provides support towards emergency relief and recovery, as and when emergencies arise.

CRS is also the fund manager for a GAVI-funded project that supports a Civil Society Organization platform to strengthen immunization systems and services.

1. Core Group Polio Project

2. ReMiND (Reducing Maternal and Newborn Deaths) Project

URL/Website of Organization: www.crs.org/countries/india