Most development interventions are considered “good buys” (for donors or governments) if they return $15 in social benefits for every $1 spent. Every $1 spent on reading glasses could result in $46 more in earnings.
Nice one Lauren great article. I feel like this is one of the few close to "slam dunks" we've got at the moment - there are a couple of big orgs already scaling it up. A 20 million yearly budget still puts Vision Spring among the larger NGOs, although I agree they could probably absorb a lot more money pretty easily.
I still think done very well and efficiently glasses for short sighted children can probably be more cost effective BUT in terms of ease of scale and relatively easy and clear economic games reading glasses are an absolute winner.
Driving prices down is obviously a challenge with both governments and BINGOs not the best at doing things in the cheapest way possible - I think distribution costs could get down to close the level of say mosquito nets if done well.
I have threatened EA Lifestyles (Kirsten) with a post about myopia and how increasing myopia is basically a consequence of development, and how we should prepare for that!
Only slightly on topic, but I'm curious about why you claim that for nearsightedness "there’s a wide range of possible prescriptions and you probably do need to see a medical professional". Why is it different from farsightedness? I'm nearsighted and I just by 3 diopter glasses from China for €10.
So the basic answer is: if you have a slightly wrong reading glasses prescription, you can move objects closer or further away, because they are quite close to you.
You cannot adjust in that way for objects far away. The cars will just be… kind of fuzzy. If I tried to drive without my glasses, or even with a -4 prescription instead of a -7, people could die (most likely me).
(also I don’t have the numbers to back this up, but my impression is that very high prescriptions are more common in myopia. Like, I’m a -7.25/-6.5 and I am not the highest prescription among people I know; my impression is that +7.25 is quite rare.)
Nice one Lauren great article. I feel like this is one of the few close to "slam dunks" we've got at the moment - there are a couple of big orgs already scaling it up. A 20 million yearly budget still puts Vision Spring among the larger NGOs, although I agree they could probably absorb a lot more money pretty easily.
I still think done very well and efficiently glasses for short sighted children can probably be more cost effective BUT in terms of ease of scale and relatively easy and clear economic games reading glasses are an absolute winner.
Driving prices down is obviously a challenge with both governments and BINGOs not the best at doing things in the cheapest way possible - I think distribution costs could get down to close the level of say mosquito nets if done well.
I have threatened EA Lifestyles (Kirsten) with a post about myopia and how increasing myopia is basically a consequence of development, and how we should prepare for that!
Only slightly on topic, but I'm curious about why you claim that for nearsightedness "there’s a wide range of possible prescriptions and you probably do need to see a medical professional". Why is it different from farsightedness? I'm nearsighted and I just by 3 diopter glasses from China for €10.
So the basic answer is: if you have a slightly wrong reading glasses prescription, you can move objects closer or further away, because they are quite close to you.
You cannot adjust in that way for objects far away. The cars will just be… kind of fuzzy. If I tried to drive without my glasses, or even with a -4 prescription instead of a -7, people could die (most likely me).
(also I don’t have the numbers to back this up, but my impression is that very high prescriptions are more common in myopia. Like, I’m a -7.25/-6.5 and I am not the highest prescription among people I know; my impression is that +7.25 is quite rare.)