The Department of Family Welfare in the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002) introduced the Mother NGO scheme under the Reproductive and Child Health Program. Under this scheme, the DoFW identified and sanctioned grants to selected NGOs called Mother NGOs (MNGOs) in allocated district/s. These MNGOs, in turn, issued grants to smaller NGOs, called Field NGOs (FNGOs), in the allocated district/s. The grants were to be used for promoting the goals/objective as outlined in the Reproductive and Child Health Program of GoI. The MNGOs and FNGOs are involved in advocacy and awareness generation in respect of the RCH programme, with emphasis on gender, while aiming to augment institutional capacity at the field levels. They also address gaps in information and counselling.

The underlying philosophy of the scheme has been one of nurturing and capacity building.

Broadly the objectives of the program are:

•  Addressing the gaps in information or RCH services in the project area.

•  Building strong institutional capacity at the state, district/ field level.

•  Advocacy, awareness generation.

At the time of preparing these Guidelines, 105 MNGOs were participating in 439 districts, through approximately 800 Field NGOs. In keeping with the philosophy of capacity building, four NGOs had been identified as Regional Resource Centers (RRC) to provide technical support to the MNGOs.

The lessons learned over the past three years have indicated that modifications need to be made in the existing guidelines of the scheme, in terms of

•  decentralization,

•  simplification of fund disbursal process,

•  rationalization of jurisdiction, and

•  interface with local government bodies.