VICALP - Value Integrated Comprehensive Abortion Linked Project

The Mexico City Policy, critically referred to as the Global Gag Rule, is a United States Government policy which prohibits any organisation which receives US global health funds from providing abortion-related services, including information, counselling, advocacy and referrals.

The Mexico City Policy is an extension of the USA’s standing policy of 1973 under the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits foreign assistance to be used for performing abortions as a method of family planning or to motivate any person to practice abortion. First implemented in 1984, the Mexico City Policy was rescinded twice and reinstated twice so far. Once limited to family planning programmes, the expanded policy by the Trump administration in 2017 applies even to organisations that wish to use US funds for their non-abortion related health services while using non US funds, through other sources, for abortion-related services.

With the belief that every woman and girl has the right to choose and to live free from sexual and reproductive coercion, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) generated financial resources to bridge the gap created due to funding loss for abortion and sexual reproductive health (SRH) services — the Global Gag Rule Emergency Fund (GGR).

At FPA India, the GGR fund project was named ‘VICALP’, which in multiple languages denotes ‘an alternative’. VICALP also stands as an acronym for Value Integrated Comprehensive Abortion Linked Project.

VICALP has instituted three cost-effective and sustainable models of SRH service delivery — Models of Programming — for poor and vulnerable communities in resource-limited areas of select urban slums and rural outreach served by FPA India.

Leveraging these models of service delivery to minimise potential funding loss and ensuring sustained SRH services through a strategic communication campaign is also an important objective of the project.

The VICALP-GGR emergency fund project is currently being implemented in six states of India and in New Delhi, through eight dedicated implementing teams of FPA India.