Eye Bank Wins 2020 Public-Private Partnership Impact Award

ADDIS ABEBA – Eye Bank of Ethiopia has won the 2020 public-private partnership (P3) Impact Award, its organizer’s said.

The announcement was made by the Office of Global Partnerships at the U.S. Department of State, the University Of Virginia Darden’s School of Business Institute for Business in Society and Concordia, according to the US embassy.

The annual P3 Impact Award recognizes exemplary cross-sector collaborations that feature public, private and non-profit organizations addressing societal challenges.

Eye Bank of Ethiopia’s Elimination of Corneal Blindness Partnership (EBE) is the seventh public-private partnership to win the annual award.

It is a public-private partnership between Ministry of Health, SightLife, and the Himalayan Cataract Project that intends to serve as a model for development throughout Africa via the establishment of the first eye bank in sub-Saharan Africa.

About 300,000 Ethiopians are affected by corneal blindness, data shows.

Eliminating corneal blindness requires patient access to good-quality, affordable eye care across all stages of life, the integration of corneal health services into primary healthcare systems and access to transplant tissue, experts say.

Since the initiation of the partnership, EBE has met 100 percent of the demand for corneal tissue in Ethiopia and has completed 2,400 transplants with 70 percent of transplants being successful after 5 years.