International Governmental Collaborations

On our first day in New Delhi, we met with Nandita Chopra, the United States (US) National Institutes of Health (NIH) Representative to India. Although in the midst of hosting a US Senate delegation, Ms. Chopra graciously spent some time with the GWU team to describe NIH’s work in India.

As we learned, most Institutes within the NIH family conduct international work either by scientifically collaborating with foreign research institutions and/or providing grants to fund research conducted outside the United States as part of scientific diplomacy efforts. The NIH has representatives in several key foreign countries including China, Brazil and India. One impetus for NIH’s efforts overseas lies in the realization that improving public health in developing nations ultimately positively impacts those countries, the United States, and the rest of the world by creating a healthier population.

Ms. Chopra arrived in India approximately eight months ago to oversee NIH funding efforts here. As part of her activities she helps monitor existing funding efforts and identify potentially new areas for further research and funding. In addition to hosting US Congressional and other governmental delegations to showcase NIH’s work in India and provide the basis for further appropriations for subsequent efforts, Ms. Chopra also attends conferences and research meetings to describe the scientific collaborations and their impact on public health in India.

One new area of endeavor that Ms. Chopra envisions lies in the environmental-occupational health arena. Slated to attend an upcoming conference, she indicated the possibility of identifying some new areas of focus for the NIH overseas efforts. It was gratifying to learn about this development as throughout our trip to India, we saw numerous instances of where environmental-occupational health could be expanded. Some examples include (1) the various small-scale industries operating in urban slums like Dharavi, in Mumbai without occupational health protections or enforcement; (2) lack of general sanitation and solid waste management in cities like Mumbai; and (3) limited green spaces and access to clean drinking water.

Conversely, it is clear that several governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations and green initiatives exist throughout the country that are devoted to environmental health issues. For example, there is a National Institute for Environmental Engineering with zonal offices in multiple parts of the country, the New Delhi Bus system, billed as a green bus service that runs on natural gas, gasoline-natural gas hybrid taxi services like Meru Taxicabs that operate in many major metropolitan areas, and one of the largest solar cookstove initiatives in the Southern India City of Chennai. We also passed several billboards on major thoroughfares that advertised initiatives such as “Clean Mumbai, Green Mumbai: Because we need Green Cities not Scarcities.” The recycling industry operating out of slum areas and manned by ragpickers itself offers an insightful lesson in recycling and solid waste management!

Hence there both exist several existing initiatives that offer the potential for scaling up as well as avenues for further scientific and technical research.