Urban Health Resource Centre in a nongovernmental organization that addresses health, nutrition and wellbeing of the disadvantaged urban dwellers through demonstration programmes, technical support to government and no-government sector, research, advocacy and knowledge dissemination through a consultative and partnership based approach.

Urban Health Resource Centre implements demonstration health programs in diverse cities (Indore, Agra, North-East Delhi) such that these may be adapted, replicated and/or up-scaled by government and non-governmental agencies. These programmes help better understand which strategies are more effective and feasible, and more importantly the how-to of implementing these strategies. The focus is on strengthening the social fabric in slums and address gender inequity, there is a concerted effort towards empowering slum-level women’s groups and their federations, developing community-based health and development funds and building capacity of slum women to enable them take charge of processes that affect their health, nutrition and wellbeing. Through empowered community groups, coordination with providers and synergizing efforts of stakeholders, programs facilitate access of services and entitlements/rights to the vulnerable, socially backward sections of society. These demonstration programs have provided valuable learnings on the operational aspects of training and utilizing services of health volunteers in slums, involving NGOs in social mobilization, service delivery, and training women’s groups to track health coverage and manage health funds. These cogent lessons have been instrumental in guiding policy directions and shaping governmental and non-governmental programs in other cities.

Research undertaken by UHRC and its publications inform policy development and urban health programming approaches of the government and other stakeholders. UHRC undertakes primary quantitative and qualitative research as well as secondary-research including re-analysis of large data sets such as NFHS. UHRC endeavors to enhance policy attention to the urban underserved population through organizing various events which highlight the importance of focusing on health of the urban poor and the key strategies which could be adopted to improve their health and living conditions.

UHRC website is a service for programmers and academia. The website has extensive information on social empowerment, urban health issues, challenges faced by disadvantaged social groups and serves as a ready reference for many.

UHRC provides technical support on health, nutrition and related issues to National, State, and District Governments, urban local bodies and other NGOs. UHRC has provided technical assistance for the Governments of Uttarakhand, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi for developing Project Implementation Plans and strengthening urban health approaches and capacities. It has also developed sample city health plans under RCH-II for four cities of diverse sizes and situations. These cities include Delhi (Mega city), Agra (Million plus city), Bally (less than 1,000,000 population) and Haldwani (around 100,000 population). It has also supported GOI for preparing national guidelines that provide policy guidance to cities and states undertaking urban health programs. UHRC team members represented UHRC at “National Task Force to Advise NRHM on Strategies for Urban Health Care” (2005-06) and also facilitated GOI for preparing framework of the proposed National Urban Health Mission.

Current field programs include a) Women’s empowerment, enhancing negotiation skills and improving access to services in Indore and Agra; b) “Gender Resource Centre” and Enhancing Negotiation Skills of Community Volunteers in North-east Delhi; c) District Resource Centre in North District, Delhi d) technical support to Govt. of Uttarakhand where State Health and Family Welfare Society in partnership with five NGOs is running its urban health program serving urban slums in four cities - Dehradun, Haridwar, Haldwani and Roorkee This technical support included facilitation of partnership including MoUs with NGOs, developing urban health plan for all four cities and city maps, development of practical guides/’How-to-modules’ on different aspects of programming, thematic strategy documents and conducting capacity building workshops and study tour to Agra program. For a more comprehensive description of UHRC’s activities please click