Convergence

NRHM has laid emphasis on the aspect of convergence which is a cross cutting theme. There are a heap of factors like nutrition, literacy – education, water and sanitation, means of transportation and communication besides availability of health care which results in the psycho-social well being of a person. Hence it is imperative to identify and intertwine all these health determinants in a logical manner to impact positively in the well being of a person and overall good health status of families. The need of convergence is widely recognized in all areas to get optimum results in set timeframe for the targeted audience and more so in the sector of health because the determinants of health are varied and are spread over areas like drinking water and sanitation, nutrition, education, livelihood, environment and social justice which cannot be ignored if Health for all is intended. For the achievement of said goal, convergence is needed at all the level of policy making, planning, and framing of programmes till down to implementation and review of the same. Coordination has to be made effective with other sectoral departments like panchayati raj system, village health and sanitation committee, AWW, ANMs, ICDS, Sahiyyas (ASHA) from the village level BDOs, MOs and other block officials from the block level so on. At the district level, the District Commissioner, DPMU, DHS, CDPOs (ICDS), DEOs and public health engineering works, social welfare, civil supplies dept, PWD, Electricity Board. All these in one way or the other contribute and are inter dependent and complement each other. Different sectors have their own programs, strategies and human resources to cater to the need of the mother and child. Convergence, in this sense becomes an important strategy where different departments can come together, share their resources and work towards a common goal. The functional issues have to be sorted out between these departments. In Jharkhand, efforts have been made by government and non government sector on better coordination among intra department and inter department especially in health programming.

The departments that are having close synergy with RCH are :

• Women Development and Child Welfare
• Rural Development
• Urban Development
• Tribal Welfare
• Panchayati Raj Institution.
• Human Resource ( Education) Department.
• Labour Department
• Jharkhand State AIDS control society

The different methods to establish the convergence in letter and spirit will largely be in the form of :

• Joint meetings at all levels for policy framing and designing implementation strategies with activity timeline
• Multi sectoral Capacity Building programmes
• Assigning responsibilities for different convergence avenues
• Common reporting mechanisms
• Joint monitoring and review