Evaluation of the ‘Integrated Rural Health Programme (IRHP)

Location: India  |  Funded by: Misereor

Key objective:

• The evaluation aimed to identify information on the outcome and impact of implemented activities, and as a result enable learning processes between the partners and in the project at all levels.
• The project provides promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health care guided by a coherent and holistic vision of primary health care (PHC).

Project description: Evaplan was one of the two consultants commissioned by MISEREOR (the other one was a national consultant) to evaluate the ‘Integrated Rural Health Programme (IRHP)’ of Raigarh Ambikapur Health Association (RAHA) in Chhattisgarh, India. RAHA is a non-governmental organisation that has been operational since 1969 with the primary objective to provide health care services to tribal and other needy people with low socio-economic backgrounds living in the four districts of Eastern Chhattisgarh: Raigarh, Jashpur, Suguja Ambikapur and Korea. Chhattisgarh is one of the most underdeveloped states in India and MISEREOR started its cooperation with RAHA in 1985.

Data from 2013 indicated that RAHA provides technical and financial support within the IRHP framework to more than 475.000 people living in 475 villages. The project comprises primary health care activities and services in villages, at schools and health facilities all of them connected by the community-based health insurance scheme (MIS), one of the core parts of the project. The IRHP includes a large group of village health workers (VHW) and their supervisors (FS), furthermore a catholic network of 93 rural health centres (RHC) and 3 Referral Hospitals (secondary level) which are managed by professional doctors and nurses.