International Development Association assisted Multi-State "ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP)"

Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)

04-October-2012 20:39 IST

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the implementation of the International Development Association (IDA) assisted ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP).

i. ISSNIP has been designed to supplement and provide value addition on the existing ICDS programme, through systems strengthening for better service delivery, as well as to allow the select States/Districts to experiment, innovate and conduct pilots of potentially more effective approaches for ICDS, to achieve early childhood education and nutrition outcomes.

ii. The additional support through the project, though small in resources in comparison to the larger ICDS, is catalytic and is an important dimension of MWCD's overall efforts to strengthen and restructure the ICDS programme.

iii. Four major components under the project are:

(i) Institutional and systems strengthening in ICDS

(ii) Community mobilization and behaviour change communication

(iii) piloting multi-sectoral nutrition actions, and

(iv) Project Management, Technical Assistance and Monitoring & Evaluation

The total size of the project is Rs. 2893 crore with 70 percent IDA share of Rs. 2025 crore (USD$ 450 million) over 7 years. Estimated cost of phase 1 of the project is about US$ 151.50 million (Rs. 682 crore) of which US$ 106 million is the IDA share (70 percent). Phase 2 of the project is currently estimated at Rs. 2211.29 crore, of which IDA share is 1547.90 crore (US$ 344 million). States will be bearing 10 percent of the project cost.

The project is proposed to be implemented in 162 districts having higher proportion of malnourished children in eight States, viz. Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh along with urban pilots in and around NCR of Delhi and convergent nutrition actions pilots in some selected districts in two non-project States viz., Odisha and Uttarakhand.

Background:

In the past, the World Bank has supported efforts of Government of India to improve nutrition in India through several projects till 2005-06, with an overall investment of about US$712 million. Most of this support was towards augmenting the Government of lndia resources in operationalization of ICDS projects and Anganwadi Centres, along with additional support on quality improvement activities. Evaluation findings of previous projects found evidence of improved coverage, service delivery and outcomes relating to project specific indicators.

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