Nepal Female Community Health Volunteer Program

A national network of community health volunteers in Nepal, established by the Ministry of Health and Population in 1988 with support from USAID, UNICEF and UNFPA, replacing an earlier, predominantly male community health leader model that had been tried during the 1970s. The Female Community Health Volunteer program initially selected married women of reproductive age to promote and distribute family planning commodities such as condoms and pills, reflecting Nepal's programmatic focus at the time on maternal and child health, in a country that was then one of only two in the world where women's life expectancy was lower than men's. Starting from 27 districts across Nepal's Central and Western Development Regions, the program expanded to cover all 75 of the country's districts by 1995, and its operating strategy has since been revised three times, in 1990, 1992 and 2003.