IFOS Notes:
Please Name an "Advocate" To Work with ICO

Dear IFOS Members and Friends,

I am writing on behalf of the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO) Advocacy Committee to ask each national ophthalmologic society to name one member as their official “Advocate” to work with the ICO on global initiatives to increase support for eye care.

Please send us the name and e-mail address of your Advocate no later than October 1, either by replying to this IFOS Notes or sending a message to mailto:advocacy@icoph.org.

Ideally, the person named should be a leader of your society who understands how your national government and Minister of Health set priorities for health care and is willing to devote time and effort to acting as an advocate. It may be advantageous to select someone who has connections with the Minister or other key decision makers, or you may want to choose a younger ophthalmologist who is eager to learn and work on advocacy.

The ICO will provide the Advocates with information, resources and guidance to work with national VISION 2020 Coordinating Committees, NGOs and others to inform your national government about the importance and benefits of increasing support for eye care.

There will be a meeting of the Advocates from each country at noon on June 27, 2008 prior to the World Ophthalmology Congress in Hong Kong. (The ICO will not be able to reimburse any costs for advocates, but we hope that most will be planning to be at the Congress anyway. The advocacy luncheon will be followed by a World Ophthalmology Roundtable on Leadership Development (WORLD) and then the IFOS General Assembly.)

Our advocacy efforts will build on recent the passage by the World Health Assembly of the Resolution 59-25, which calls for countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide more support for the VISION 2020 global initiative specifically and for prevention of avoidable blindness and visual impairment in general.

As a first priority, we will ask the advocates to assure that prevention of visual impairment and eye care is specifically addressed in the “Country Cooperation Strategy” (CCS) that defines the priorities for WHO work with each national government. Few existing CCSs even mention vision or eye care, and the CCS is critical to determining what WHO will do to help countries implement VISION 2020. For more information and examples of CCSs, see www.who.int/countryfocus/cooperation_strategy/en/.

Proposed by the ICO Advocacy Committee, chaired by Director for Advocacy Hugh Taylor, MD, AC, this initiative was will be directed by Advocacy Committee Member Abdulaziz AlRajhi, MD, who is also a Council member and Co-Chair, Eastern Mediterranean Region of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.

I look forward to receiving the name of your “Advocate” and to working with that individual to increase national support for eye care.

With warm regards,

Bruce Spivey, MD
ICO President

945 Green Street
San Francisco, CA, 94133, USA
(1-415) 409-8410
Fax: (1-415) 409-8403
spivey@icoph.org
www.icoph.org