The World Report on Vision

In this video, Peter Holland, chief executive of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), explains why the World Report on Vision provides a direction for the next decade through a framework for action. The approach aims to strengthen health systems by integrating eye care and building a strong foundation for service delivery that addresses population needs.

The World Report on Vision

The World Report states clearly:

• That globally, at least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness. Of these, at least 1 billion have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed.
• The need tends to be greatest in low and middle-income countries and underserved populations, such as women, migrants, indigenous peoples, people with certain kinds of disability and in rural communities.
• Population growth and ageing, along with behavioural and lifestyle changes and urbanisation, will dramatically increase the number of people with eye conditions, vision impairment and blindness in the coming decades.

The World Report and IAPB

IAPB and its many partners around the world have made major strides to address avoidable blindness. Successes have included global advocacy, resolutions and actions plans at a national level.
This progress must now accelerate to keep pace with the increasing need and, to help achieve this, the ‘World Report’ sets out five key recommendations:

1. Make eye care an integral part of universal health coverage.
2. Implement integrated people-centred eye care in health systems.
3. Promote high-quality implementation and health systems research, which complements the existing evidence for effective eye care interventions.
4. Monitor trends and evaluate progress towards implementing integrated people-centred eye care.
5. Raise awareness, engage and empower people and communities about eye care needs.

To achieve better integration of eye care into health systems, and reduce inequalities by delivering quality eye services that meet a population’s needs, requires political will, directed scientific evidence and planning. It also needs the building of an appropriate eye care workforce that can provide the necessary coordination and continuity of care.

The World Report – Actionables

Key activities following on from the World Report include:

1. 40 different launches of the report at country and regional level.
2. Advocacy activities from the UN Friends of Vision Group
3. Commonwealth leaders will convene under the overarching theme ‘Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming’ at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda.
4. The IAPB 2020 General Assembly in Singapore