USAID effectively ran India's National Family Health Survey from 1990s, says Economist Sanjeev Sanyal

New Delhi: Sanjeev Sanyal, economist and member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, on Monday, said those concerned about USAID's interference in Indian elections should be equally concerned about USAID's tentacles in India's medical system and social policies.

Sanjeev Sanyal raised concerns about the influence of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on India's health system and social policies, particularly through its involvement with the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

Sanyal said that USAID's role in conducting and shaping the survey from the 1990s until two years ago has had significant implications for both India's medical data and its health policies.

In a post on X on Monday, Sanyal wrote, "Those concerned about USAID's interference in Indian elections should be equally concerned about USAID's tentacles in India's medical system and social policies. USAID effectively ran India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS) from the 1990s till it was stopped two years ago. This is the most important medical dataset in India and drives a lot of health policy."

He added, "Not only were we allowing a foreign agency to harvest our medical data but, by allowing them to design surveys and direct analysis, we were letting them influence our national health responses", news agency ANI reported.

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He also pointed out that the NFHS questionnaire was "skewed" to support social narratives, particularly around issues of domestic violence.

"Equally worryingly, much of the NFHS questionnaire was deliberately skewed to support certain social narratives. The questionnaire for men, for instance, is only 29 pages but that for women is 94 pages. A lot of the additional questions are deliberately worded to elicit a narrative of intra-family violence against Indian women. Must say, very slyly done," Sanyal said.

He added, "Readers will recall that late Bibek Debroy and I strongly pushed back against this (including publicly in newspaper columns). Fortunately, GoI took up the matter and the latest NFHS is being done by the Health Ministry on its own. Some people are asking why the USAID did the the 2019-21 NFHS survey and was not removed earlier. Well, it is not so easy to upturn a well established system that went back decades. It takes time to recognise a problem, and build capability to replace it. Nonetheless, GoI has been tightening FCRA over the last decade despite many howls of protest. One can only do more when the Overton Window has moved. The DOGE revelations about USAID has hopefully done that."

On February 16, Sanyal in another post wrote, "Would love to find out who received the US$21mn spent to improve "voter turnout in India" and the US$29mn to "strengthening political landscape in Bangladesh"; not to mention the US$29mn spend to improve "fiscal federalism" in Nepal. USAID is the biggest scam in human history."

Recently, US President Donald Trump criticised the US Agency for International Development (USAID), claiming that the agency's handling of funds is "fraudulently and unexplainable" and said that the agency should "close down."

"USAID is driving the radical left crazy, and there is nothing they can do about it because how the money has been spent, so much of it fraudulently, is unexplainable. The corruption is at levels rarely seen before. Close it down," Trump wrote on X, reports ANI.

Earlier on Sunday, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar had slammed USAID over its funding allocations in South Asia, including USD 21 million intended for increasing voter turnout in India.

Describing the expenditure as a "smoking gun of interference", Chandrasekhar said it undermines democratic nations under the guise of promoting democratic values.

The BJP leader was responding to a post by the Department of Government Efficiency, which outlined a list of expenditures funded by US taxpayer dollars--all of which have now been cancelled.

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