Impact of Suaahara, an at-scale multisectoral nutrition programme, on health workers' maternal and child health, and nutrition knowledge and skills in Nepal.

Suaahara, an at-scale multisectoral nutrition programme in Nepal, aimed to advance knowledge and skills of frontline health workers to improve the quality of nutrition and health services at health facility and community levels. This study assessed the impact of Suaahara interventions on knowledge and skills of health facility workers and Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs). The study used a quasi-experimental design in which four Suaahara intervention districts were compared with pair-matched comparison districts.

Evaluation of a quality improvement intervention for obstetric and neonatal care in selected public health facilities across six states of India.

Background: While increase in the number of women delivering in health facilities has been rapid, the quality of obstetric and neonatal care continues to be poor in India, contributing to high maternal and neonatal mortality.

Methods: The USAID ASSIST Project supported health workers in 125 public health facilities (delivering approximately 180,000 babies per year) across six states to use quality improvement (QI) approaches to provide better care to women and babies before, during and immediately after delivery. As part of this intervention, each month, health workers recorded data related to nine elements of routine care alongside data on perinatal mortality.

Globalizing queer? AIDS, homophobia and the politics of sexual identity in India.

Queerness is now global. Many emerging economies of the global South are experiencing queer mobilization and sexual identity politics raising fundamental questions of citizenship and human rights on the one hand; and discourses of nationalism, cultural identity, imperialism, tradition and family-values on the other. While some researchers argue that with economic globalization in the developing world, a Western, hegemonic notion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity has been exported to traditional societies thereby destroying indigenous sexual cultures and diversities, other scholars do not consider globalization as a significant factor in global queer mobilization and sexual identity politics.