MEMISA Belgium Renews Partnership for Maternal Health
Belgian global health NGO MEMISA has renewed its multi-year partnership with BITAN, committing €380,000 over three years to expand community-based maternal and newborn care in Howrah.
MEMISA Belgium — the Belgian Catholic health development NGO with global operations in 18 countries — has signed a renewed three-year cooperation agreement with BITAN, committing €380,000 (approximately ₹3.4 crore) to strengthen community-based maternal and newborn health services across 12 blocks in Howrah and South 24 Parganas districts. The agreement was signed in Kolkata on 1 September 2025 by BITAN's Executive Director and MEMISA's South Asia Regional Director.
The first partnership phase, which concluded in March 2025, supported 72 community health workers — primarily ASHAs and Anganwadi workers — to deliver enhanced prenatal counselling, skilled birth preparedness support, and postnatal home visiting. Over the three years, the programme was linked to a measurable decline in institutional delivery gaps: in programme villages, the proportion of deliveries occurring in government health facilities rose from 74% to 91%.
The renewed phase places greater emphasis on newborn care and infant and young child feeding (IYCF). MEMISA's global expertise in community kangaroo mother care (KMC) — a low-cost method for supporting low birth-weight infants — will be integrated into the BITAN community health worker curriculum for the first time. MEMISA has documented significant reductions in neonatal mortality through KMC scale-up in its programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, and the partners are eager to test adaptation in the Indian context.
"BITAN has proven to be an exceptionally capable implementing partner — rigorous on data, deeply embedded in communities, and willing to push the technical boundaries of what community-level care can achieve," said MEMISA's South Asia Regional Director. "This renewal is a vote of confidence, and the new phase will let us go further together."
The partnership also includes a research component: BITAN will collect and analyse data on newborn care practices and outcomes under a protocol developed with MEMISA's medical team and validated by the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIHPH) in Kolkata. Findings will be published and shared with the Government of West Bengal's health directorate to inform state-level programming.