Leveraging Innovative Financing Mechanisms to Improve Eye Health, as Featured in Devex

This World Sight Day, we are proud to announce our participation in the Cameroon Cataract Development Impact Loan: the first development impact bond focused on eye care.

Program associate, Justin McAuliffe speaks to the Foundation’s efforts in this space:

Prior to this bond, the Hilton Foundation had been looking to explore using philanthropic dollars to catalyze innovative financing. The Foundation has an “all hands on deck” approach to try to explore as many models as possible to generate investment and really move the needle.

The Cameroon Cataract Development Impact Loan will also increase access to high quality eye care in Central Africa. The impact bond will provide financing for a sub-specialty hospital in Yaoundé, Cameroon with the impact objective of providing at least 18,000 high quality cataract surgeries over the next five years. Our partners on this project include a number of impressive organizations including OPIC, the Fred Hollows Foundation, Sightsavers and the Africa Eye Foundation.

Only the fourth development impact bond to officially be launched in the developing world, this project provides a unique model to emulate for future iterations of this financing mechanism, particularly for providing financing to expand access to healthcare interventions in underserved regions.