Bangladesh NGO Service Delivery Program

In Bangladesh, a group of women learn about reproductive health and their options for family planning.

As the lead organization on the nearly $60 million NGO Service Delivery Project (NSDP), implemented from 2002-2007, Pathfinder partnered with more than 30 local NGOs whose 318 Smiling Sun clinics reach approximately 20 million people in disadvantaged rural areas and urban slums. Through this project, the NGOs provided free maternal health, infant care, and primary care services to the poorest of the poor. However, the NGOs were still able to increase their total number of customers and revenues from user fees of able-to-pay customers through an innovative performance-based reimbursement scheme, sale of health benefit cards, and expansion of income-generating services.

The NSDP project built upon Pathfinder's highly successful Rural Service Delivery Program (RSDP) which, from 1997-2002, delivered integrated family planning and maternal-child health services in 216 sub-districts, with a population of 10 million, in rural Bangladesh. RSDP cut program operating costs, increased clinic and depot holder revenues and increased their market share of family planning and health services, decreased reliance on government-subsidized services, and encouraged NGOs to obtain their own clinic site.