Giving Compass' Take:

• Dr. Shailendra Kumar B Hegde and Pritha Venkatachalam discuss how India will struggle to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals if they don't make more of an effort to improve the lives of tribal populations.

• How can donors help encourage multi-stakeholders to contribute more to tribal healthcare?

• Read about 5 healthcare industry-changing principles from India.


Improvement in healthcare delivery for India’s 104 million tribal people poses a major challenge to the country’s ability to meet the health and nutrition targets set by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.

As evident from data in the tribal policy brief, compared to India’s overall population, tribal communities suffer from higher maternal and under-five mortality; stunted, wasted, and underweight children; higher incidence of malaria and tuberculosis; and a high and growing burden of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and hypertension. Therefore, without an explicit and concerted focus on delivering quality healthcare services to its tribal populations, India runs the risk of excluding and further marginalising them, as well as undermining its efforts to reach SDG 2 on hunger, and SDG 3 on health and wellbeing.

To dive deeper into these issues and explore possible solutions for scaled impact, a joint team of Piramal Swasthya and The Bridgespan Group recently undertook extensive research (including interviews and field visits) on the tribal health challenges confronting India. This builds on Piramal Swasthya’s work in the tribal mandals of Visakhapatnam district as well as in the 25 NITI Aayog-mentored Aspirational Districts.

Based on our study, we concluded that ending preventable deaths and reducing morbidity in tribal areas will require major investment in building strong and functioning primary healthcare systems with robust referral chains. Any such action also needs to overcome the significant barriers that tribal populations face in terms of access to, and awareness of quality healthcare.

Read the full article about India's healthcare goals by Dr. Shailendra Kumar B Hegde and Pritha Venkatachalam at India Development Review (IDR).