India, home to the third largest population living with HIV in the world, has a 1.9% population growth rate and a fertility rate of 2.7. Additionally, approximately 30 million Indian couples nationwide have an unmet need for contraception - making access to family planning and the increased use of contraceptives a priority issue.

USAID’s Contraceptive and Reproductive Health Technologies Research and Utilization (CRTU) works at the national and state level to expand the range and availability of safe, effective, acceptable and affordable technologies and methods for the prevention of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

The key activities under the project include:

• Review India’s guidelines on IntraUterine Devices (IUD), and provide technical assistance to providers in order to improve IUD services;
• Lead the development of a comprehensive UP state IUD strategy, as well as, a national IUD strategy, for the purpose of increasing uptake of IUDs;
• Conduct a study with private providers that assesses the barriers to increasing IUD use;
• Adapt internationally accepted best practices to increase access to and use of contraceptive methods;
• Compare the effectiveness of three vasectomy techniques and study the acceptability of vasectomy among clients and providers; and
• Support the expansion of contraceptive options available to women and couples by studying the factors that lead women to adopt or reject Depo Provera as a family planning method in the private sector.

Also under this project, Family Health International works with the National AIDS Research Institute on a study exploring the sustained acceptability of vaginal microbicides, which is being conducted in parallel with a HIV Prevention Trial’s Network Phase II Safety Trial of Tenofovir Gel.