AIF to launch more projects in India

The American India Foundation (AIF) will scale up its education, livelihood and public health projects in India to cover more than four million in the next five years.

The Foundation, formed in 2001 with the help of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, is currently running five major initiatives, said M.A. Ravi Kumar, chief executive officer of the foundation, who was in India recently to review the ongoing projects.

In a telephone interview to

The Hindu from New Delhi, he said that among the programmes that are going to be scaled up is the Maternal and New Born Survival Initiative (MANSI), which the Foundation is now implementing along with Tata Steel at Seraikela-Kharsawan district in Jharkhand to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates. In the last three years, he said that the project had helped reduce infant mortality by 19 per cent.

The Foundation had formed partnerships with eight State Governments including Tamil Nadu and also with service organisations of Indian companies.

Mr. Ravi Kumar said that the Foundation would launch fund-raising campaigns in India too.

Through the AIF Clinton Fellowship programme, 298 Indian and U.S. students have been given an exposure to poverty alleviation programmes by making them work with NGOs, he said.

The Coimbatore Corporation had inked a MoU with the Foundation to implement a ‘Digital Equaliser’ programme in all the 27 Corporation schools.