Opportunity

Scaling up kangaroo mother care

Being born too small or too early are leading causes of death of children under five in Cameroon.

Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is a proven practice recommended for preterm or low birthweight babies that involves holding the baby skin-to-skin on the mother’s or other family member’s chest, ideally feeding them only breastmilk, and having close follow-up care of the mother and baby once they return home.

Cameroon is committed to scaling up KMC, but lacks the infrastructure, equipment, staff knowledge and management support to deliver this lifesaving practice at its hospitals.

Our Solution

Cameroon KMC Development Impact Bond

With support from NLIFT and others, quality KMC will be scaled up to 10 hospitals across Cameroon.

The NLIFT investment is critical to launching the Cameroon KMC Development Impact Bond—the first ever in the field of nutrition.

Development Impact Bonds

Development impact bonds (DIB) are entirely focused on outcomes.

The KMC DIB investor provided start-up funds to strengthen hospital infrastructure, equipment, staff knowledge and management needed to deliver quality KMC across Cameroon. This start-up capital is returned to the KMC DIB investor by its outcome funders only if a set of independently evaluated targets are met.

Many countries, including Cameroon, lack the resources, technical expertise and training to implement quality KMC at scale. The “pay-for-success” DIB model is an innovative way to fill this gap.

Nutrition International, together with the Government of Cameroon, will pay for success, defined as pre-determined quality KMC practices, as well as infrastructure indicators.

The NLIFT investment will leverage the DIB’s robust and frequent data collection and analysis to:

Enable better tracking of the target population
Inform more adaptive program management processes
Inform evidence-based decision-making processes

The Impact

Expected outcomes

This investment has improved the health and nutrition outcomes for low birthweight and premature babies, including through the promotion of exclusive breastfeeding. It will also expand quality KMC throughout Cameroon’s public healthcare system and provide evidence of the success of using the DIB model to implement and scale up quality KMC in other countries with high infant mortality and morbidity.

HOSPITALS TECHNICALLY AND MATERIALLY EQUIPPED TO PERFORM QUALITY KMC

2.2K

LOW BIRTHWEIGHT AND PRETERM INFANTS AND MOTHERS ENROLLED IN KMC SERVICES

CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE EQUIPPED TO SUSTAIN KMC PRACTICE

Project News

Members of parliament from the UK see impact of nutrition projects in Kenya

March 18, 2020

Kangaroo Mother Care has profound benefits for both mothers and infants: implementation is ramping up in Cameroon

March 17, 2020

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Kangaroo Mother Care, Cameroon

Opportunity

Our Solution

Development Impact Bonds

Members of parliament from the UK see impact of nutrition projects in Kenya

Kangaroo Mother Care has profound benefits for both mothers and infants: implementation is ramping up in Cameroon

Pregnant Women and Newborns

Best Practices

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