India - Health and Nutrition
One way AKDN is raising awareness about safe sanitation and key hygiene messages (as part of its Comprehensive Sanitation Initiative) is through village rallies. Here school children set off through their village to sing sanitation-focused songs. These reinforce their understanding and also spread the message to their community. Tatma tola, Muzaffarpur district, Bihar, India.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
One way AKDN is raising awareness about safe sanitation and key hygiene messages (as part of its …
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
Infant and young child feeding programme, Buniyaad, India.
AKDN / Mansi Midha
Infant and young child feeding programme, Buniyaad, India.
AKDN / Mansi Midha
Meeting organised to raise awareness about key sanitation and personal hygiene messages. Una block, Gir Somnath District, Gujarat, India.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
Meeting organised to raise awareness about key sanitation and personal hygiene messages. Una block, Gir …
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
In India, cultural stigmas often cause women and girls to run greater health risks because they lack the adequate knowledge and means to safely manage their menstrual cycles. In response, AKF’s Menstrual Hygiene Management programme educates them on reproductive biology, nutrition and safe menstrual hygiene practices.
AKDN / Mansi Midha
In India, cultural stigmas often cause women and girls to run greater health risks because they lack the …
AKDN / Mansi Midha
India | Health
The health challenges in India that are being addressed by AKDN agencies include malnutrition and lack of access to low-cost, high-quality medical care. We promote effective and sustainable health care for underserved populations, with special attention given to women and children, in specific regions in the states of Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.
2.6 million
In 2025, health and nutrition work by the Aga Khan Foundation and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme reached more than 2.6 million people in India
AKDN Health and Nutrition Work in India
Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS) is active in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana. Its aim is to provide access to good quality, comprehensive health care and to promote physical, social and mental well-being through a sustainable health care system built on volunteerism and community participation. Its role has evolved from providing health care to acting as a facilitator, increasingly through links with government and the private sector.
From its base in Mumbai, the AKHS community health division works through a large team of volunteers and salaried staff. Regional and local health boards run the programmes, supported by village health committees and a small number of health centres. Local health boards manage preventive and promotive services through outreach by lady health visitors and multi-purpose workers, and field staff visit the health committees regularly.
The division works to improve hygiene, use of oral rehydration, immunisation, maternal care, and information and services for child spacing, and to reduce the risk of tuberculosis. In community health it also runs school health and healthy lifestyle work, raises awareness of non-communicable diseases and mental health, and supports early detection and treatment of hypertension, diabetes and cancers.
The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) works on health issues faced by India's most marginalised communities in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana. Its work covers maternal and child nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, and life skills and vocational training for adolescent girls. In 2025 its health and nutrition programmes reached more than two million people and supported around 3,000 health workers and volunteers.
Sanitation coverage in India has improved, but challenges include the quality of facilities, equitable access, adoption of hygiene practices and adequate piped water supply. AKF expands access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene through inclusive, community-centred planning, which improves health outcomes. It trains field-level workers and introduces piped water systems in schools and households, supporting safe water access in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) works in rural Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, where health and nutrition is one of four priorities in its strategy to 2030. In 2025 its health and nutrition work reached more than 560,000 people, around 500,000 of them with drinking water or sanitation services. It supported more than 80 health facilities, most of them public primary health centres, and it also runs hygiene education in schools and villages, menstrual health groups, nutrition training and kitchen gardens. From 2015 to 2019, AKHS, AKF, AKRSP and Aga Khan Planning and Building Services worked together to improve marginalised communities' health and hygiene practices as well as their access to water and sanitation.
The Aga Khan Foundation and its partners in India have worked with 400,000 mothers from marginalised communities in rural Bihar, significantly improving infant and young child feeding practices.
AKDN / Mansi Midha
Maternal and Newborn Health
In AKF's programme areas in Bihar in 2025, around 45 percent of women aged 15 to 19 who had given birth had attended four or more antenatal check-ups, as had around 36 percent of women aged 20 and over. About 90 percent of live births were attended by skilled health personnel.
Menstrual Health
Stigma around menstruation leaves many women and girls in India without accurate information about menstrual health. This raises health risks and keeps girls out of school and work. AKF's menstrual hygiene management programme teaches reproductive biology, nutrition and safe menstrual practices, and AKRSP runs menstrual health groups for adolescent girls and women in the villages where it works.
AKDN / Mansi Midha
Child Nutrition, Stunting and Anaemia
More than half of Indian women aged 15 to 49 are anaemic, and over one-third of children under five are stunted (NFHS-5, 2019–21). These outcomes stem from poverty, poor nutrition, cereal-heavy diets, inadequate sanitation and the disempowerment of women in health-related decisions.
AKF's community-based under-nutrition management integrates health, hygiene and community engagement in government-run early childhood development centres and villages, strengthening maternal and child health. Training service providers and involving caregivers fosters holistic development outcomes. In 2025 AKF provided nutritional screening and counselling to nearly two million people in India, almost all of them children under five.
AKDN
Adolescent Girls: Health, Skills and Rights
In India, limited access to education, healthcare and employment opportunities undermines the well-being of young girls. This contributes to early marriage, adolescent pregnancies, poor nutrition and restricted participation in income-generation.
Through its work empowering adolescent girls and young mothers, AKF provides adolescent girls with life skills education, legal literacy and vocational training. This strengthens their voice, agency and socio-economic potential, preparing them for employment and civic engagement.
In 2025 AKF gave nutritional screening and counselling to around 37,000 adolescents aged 15 to 19 in India, and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme reached around 8,500 adolescents through targeted programmes, most of them girls of the same age.