lucknow with a promise of initiating more development activities in up chief minister akhilesh yadav and bill gates cochair of the bill and melinda gates foundation on wednesday decided to sign a memorandum of understanding mou within two months of gates visit the objective will be to engage with the gates foundation to provide technical managerial and programme design support in maternal neonatal and child healthcare vaccination and other health and agriculturerelated programmes up government has promised to lend its support to the foundations initiatives in accordance with sanctioned plans in order to achieve the shared objectives and to scaleup best practices the decision was taken at a meeting between gates and akhilesh at cm bungalow on wednesday afternoon when contacted the gates foundation said bill gates had a productive meeting with cm akhilesh yadav gates congratulated the cm on his recent election and the two discussed a number of issues related to the foundations work in up including family planning nutrition vaccines agriculture and sanitation the foundation looks forward to deepening its relationship with the cm gates was also accompanied among others by dr gary darmstadt the director of the foundations family health global health program who spearheaded the shivgarh project to bring down neonatal mortality in up interacting with the foundation team akhilesh made a mention of the various philanthropic works undertaken by the gates foundation in different districts of the state making reference to health projects like sure start manthan and urban health initiative akhilesh also shared with gates the efforts being undertaken by his government to tackle the poor health indicators of mother infant and child mortality rates low levels of complete immunisation and malnutrition among children the cm also discussed problems and challenges faced by the government vectorborne diseases like tb japanese encephalitis and acute encephalitis syndrome in parts of the state seeking the foundations support for technical knowledge in tackling health related challenges akhilesh solicited new and innovative methods for affective behavior changes delivery of services the need for organisation and management of health systems including supporting innovative information and communication technologiesbased solutions like telemedicine akhilesh said up needed more capacitybuilding initiatives among grassrootslevel health workers rather than monetary support from the foundation he said it was time the foundation considered a comprehensive and longterm programme to address the maternal and child health issues in the state in a holistic manner gates on behalf of the foundation offered to develop innovative solutions and to provide catalytic technical managerial and advocacy support to the state government he said the foundation was keen to develop partnerships in priority areas like maternal and neonatal health nutrition child health routine immunization coverage and introducing new lifesaving vaccines gates also offered assistance in the field of agriculture and for developing financial services for the poor by expanding digital payment systems into poor and rural communities and connecting those payments to enhanced savings credit and insurance services