With the objective of reducing fertility and protecting family health, a five-year programme – Nepal Family Health Programme (NFHP) – was launched on Monday.The programme aims to facilitate employing standard package of family planning services at the public health facilities in districts, implement national behaviour change strategy to improve the quality of family planning, maternal and child health services and expand the existing programmes to better monitor and supervise integrated services at the local level. It will support the government’s long-term goal of reducing fertility and under-five mortality as per the goals set by the National Health Policy and the second long-term health plan. “Activities will include increased use of quality family planning services and selected maternal and child health services at various health delivery system,” said the press release issued at the launching programme. “The programme will concentrate on meeting the unmet need of family planning and making efforts to decline the under five mortality,” said Dr Penny Dawson, chief of party NFHP. “We will also identify women at risk so that they can be provided with more attention during delivery.”Stewart McNab, UNICEF country representative, said that the challenges to the programmes in the grass root level are mounting by the day, “the services cannot function and there is logistic constraint.”Stating that the coordination between programmes are “weak”, Laxmi Raj Pathak, director general of Department of Health Services, said that the ministry and department is working on how to better manage and coordinate between programmes. The districts under focus of the programme are – Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, Siraha, Mahottari, Dhanusha, Rautahat, Bara, Parsa, Chitwan, Rasuwa, Nawalparasi, Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Bajura. Ten other districts – Saptari, Sarlahi, Makwanpur, Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Gorkha, Kaski, Rupandehi and Dang – will receive technical assistance from the programme. The programme has its main office in Kathmandu and field offices in Biratnagar, Hetauda, Pokhara, Nepalgunj and Dhangadi. According to the release, the cooperative agreement of NFHP, bilateral activity of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is awarded to John Snow Research and Training Institute (JSI) to be co-managed by EngenderHealth.“The programme will be implemented by JSI, EngenderHealth, John Hopkins University (JHU) Centre for Communication Programme and JHU Programme in International Education on Reproductive Health,” said the release.“Nepal Fertility Care Centre, Nepal Technical Assistance Group, Management Support Services, CARE, SCF/US and ADRA are collaborating partners and cooperating partners include Peace Corps, World Education, Family Health International and District Health Strengthening Project.”