Situation Analysis: The strength of FPA India lies in the vision and dedication of volunteers who subscribe its primary membership and provide leadership and governance. Beside serving on various decision making bodies, right from Branch Executive Committees to All India Council the volunteers also play a pivotal role in advocacy, resource generation, policy formulation and providing voluntary support and leadership. The MA actively follows a policy of encouraging women and young persons to enroll as ordinary members. On the other hand gender equity among elected positions is mandatory. However, the participation of women and youth in the governance needs improvement.

Agent of social change: The MA, for the last 55 years, has been promoting contraceptive practice with a backup of education, counselling and delivery of family planning services, both in outreach and static settings. Although strongly defending women’s rights, gender equity and informed choice, the MA by and large, is perceived as a family planning provider, similar to government, rather than as an agent of social change. MAs geographical spread, linguistic and cultural diversities pose a challenge to its effective governance. The MA works through 40 Branches and a number of community based projects spread across the country. Its size and geographic spread as well as the linguistic and cultural diversities within which its constituents operate make the coordination and monitoring difficult.

There is Increasing Competition from other SRH Organizations.

• With the Government’s policy to enlist the support of NGOs for advocacy and promotion of its Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) programme, more and more NGOs are coming forward. These organmisations are competing with the MA both in advocacy and promotion of SRH&R.
• With decentralization of decision making, the state and district authorities are to be approached for financial support for government schemes en-route various autonomous bodies and sub-committees. This is making the job more competitive, time consuming and involving a lot of rapport building. 
• The MAs leadership and governance need to be equipped to respond to the changing situations, to reinvent pathways to maintain the federal character of the organization, respecting the autonomy of its various constituents and fulfill the strategic priorities of 5 As.

Strategic Direction: By building volunteers capacity, sharpening skills and invoking their commitment for advocacy, resource mobilization and promotion of SRH &R as also to maintain standards of governance.

Goal: To invoke the commitment of voluntary leadership to mobilize public, political and financial support for sexual and reproductive health and rights and provide good governance.

Objective 1: To enable voluntary leadership to provide good governance and mobilize public political and financial support for promoting SRH &R

Activities:

• Review and restructure the systems of governance maintaining its federal character and respecting the autonomy of various constituents of the MA
• Bring the Small Family By Choice Project in the mainstream of MAs governance through a regional structure
• Develop a network of young persons at Branch regional and national levels to facilitate youth participation in decision making and governance
• Enroll volunteers to widen and strengthen membership of the MA by involving women, young persons, client groups and disadvantaged people
• Hold capacity building programmes for volunteers in systems of governance, leadership role and responsibilities, volunteer-staff relationship, membership standards and accreditation as also strategic priorities based on 5 As
• Provide technical support to Branches and other constituents to meet the needs of leadership and governance.
• Introduce Branch accreditation system and carryout the exercise through spot observations and online surveys
• Strength partnership between the volunteers and influential groups viz parliamentarians, executives, captains of corporate sector and mobilize support for resource generation
• Develop tools for documentations of policy decisions, protocols, standards of governance, volunteers role and responsibilities

Outcomes and Indicators: