IFC moves from HIV to total healthcare

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has decided to look beyond HIV/AIDS and towards a comprehensive healthcare package for its client companies. It is starting with Cairn Energy in Barmer, Rajasthan.

The corporation has been funding HIV interventions of its four client companies in India with a total expenditure of more than $ 200,000 over the last two years since it started its programme here.

In Barmer, it has inked a corporate social responsibility funding deal on total healthcare intervention with its latest client, Cairn Energy, with a proposed aid package of $ 300,000.

"We want to start the Cairn project in the next six months," says IFC's principal strategy officer on the AIDS programme, Sabine Durier. IFC began investing in Cairn's Barmer oilfield sometime around 2006-end, with a commitment of $ 150.

Durier, whose health package would look at maternal health, anaemia and infant care, said only 2 per cent women in the area had access to institutional child birth services and the IFC intervention would address these and other related issues, including the high incidence of anaemia in women.

The reproductive health package was in response to the need of the client and the community in Barmer. "We would consider expansion of this strategy on the basis of demands of existing and future clients," Meenakshi Sethi, regional communications officer, South Asia, said.

The IFC is running its HIV intervention programmes in 22 centres across the country through HIV help centres in Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh for Ambuja Cement, four in Delhi, Kanpur, Coimbatore and Udaipur for Apollo Tyres, six in Maharashtra for Bilt, and two in Jharkhand's Ranchi and Jamshedpur.

For more, visit www.ifc.org