The State of Bihar has been working to strengthen capacities of the districts stakeholders for writing the Program Implementation Plans (PIPs). The state pursues a bottom up approach to prepare a consolidated state level plan thus, ensuring that the program requirements of each district are satisfactorily incorporated and addressed. One area in PIP warranting special attention is the scope for proposing innovative solutions for priority program challenges and associated financial provisions from the districts.

To address this important concern, Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI) has joined hands with the State Health Society, Bihar (SHSB) to build innovation capacity of key stakeholders from all districts in the state, on innovations in health sector. State Health Society organized two-day orientation workshops from 25th -28th November, 2020 for the district officials to build their capacity in preparing proficient PIPs, including provisioning for innovative proposals and submit the same with SHSB.

Executive Director, State Health Society (SHSB), Shri. Manoj Kumar, IAS inaugurated the workshop emphasizing the need for proposing innovative solutions in district health action plans and encouraged participants to share ideas during the workshop. He further stressed on the need to develop comprehensive district PIPs with focus on innovative approaches.

A total of 96 participants including State Program Officers, District Program Managers (DPM) and District Planning Coordinators (DPC) from each district participated in the workshop.

Team NIPI presented the concept of innovations in public health with the workshop participants. NIPI also oriented these district stakeholders on proceeding with provisioning of funds for innovations in the annual PIP. Mr. Gaurav Kumar, State Program Manager, NIPI Bihar presented analysis of the PIPs of last few years to make key stakeholders understand the gaps in public health innovation He also urged the district stakeholders to perform situational analysis of their respected districts to identify areas for innovations.

In line with NIPI’s commitment to strengthen innovation capacities in all its’ interventions states/UT, Mr. Sourav Neogi, State Innovation Officer, NIPI Bihar conducted a session on NIPI’s association with SHSB in developing a systematic approach focused towards scaling up innovations in public health.

The district participants showed their keen interest in proposing innovations (innovative solutions) in their respective districts and shared their ideas during the workshop. The workshop aimed to educate the district team members regarding the intricacies and importance of innovations in public health, offering them an opportunity to come up with unconventional approaches for promoting health innovations to be presented in the annual PIP.

NIPI intends to further support strengthening innovation development capacity in the state National Health Mission (NHM) of Bihar, through the newly established innovation hub by the state.