India Offers Global Support for Maternal & Child Healthcare

By: Women Entrepreneurs Review Team | Thursday, 21 May 2026

India has reaffirmed its commitment to advancing global healthcare for women, children, and adolescents, with Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda highlighting the country’s readiness to provide technical guidance, digital public health solutions, and evidence-based healthcare models to nations worldwide.

During a bilateral meeting with Helen Clark at the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Nadda reiterated that India had been at the forefront of introducing health interventions in an equitable and accessible manner across all populations. The purpose of the meeting was to enhance international cooperation around maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and the PMNCH.

Nadda stated that India has always prioritised and kept women, children and adolescents at the heart of its healthcare delivery systems and sustainable development programme. “India has been the bed of innovation and delivering interventions at scale with equity and accessibility. We have kept the health of women, children and adolescents at the heart of our service delivery and sustainable development,” he said.

Union Minister also expressed India's desire to share with the world successful innovations and good practices in healthcare domain through physical and virtual means. He invited PMNCH to share India's public health successes in the world, including its effective, scalable health systems and digital public health efforts.

Key Highlights

• India prioritises equitable healthcare access for women and children.
• Maternal and infant mortality indicators improved faster than global averages.
• Digital public health innovations positioned India as global healthcare leader.

Emphasizing this, Nadda said that India had brought in a country tailored adolescent health programme in 2014, which was one of those first around the globe. The scheme broadened the range of health care services for children as well as young people, by providing services in school, in the community, and inside facilities, so in effect it made access a lot wider to adolescent healthcare services across the country.

The minister also noted that the improvement in the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) and the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) had been tremendous compared to the world and India was outperforming the rest of the world in this improvement. He emphasized that the significant measures taken at the national level and the healthcare practices adopted based on evidence in India could be used as models by other countries to enhance their public health systems.

The Indian government is actively taking part in PMNCH as a vice chair of the board and chair of its standing committee, Nadda highlighted. He said that India’s grant contribution of USD 2 million per year, indefinitely, is on the way and will be shared soon to PMNCH.

Reiterating India's policy and practice of global cooperation, Nadda invoked an old Indian saying ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ which translates to ‘the world is one family’ and spoke of unity, compassion and shared responsibility in the context of the global healthcare challenges.