Preservation and Restoration of Vision:

VISION 2020: The Right to Sight - Global Initiative to Eliminate Avoidable Blindness

On this page:

• The global initiative
  
  
• Coordination with Vision for the Future
  
  
• More Information

The global initiative

On February 18, 1999 the World Health Organisation (WHO) and a broad coalition of international, non-governmental and private organizations launched in Geneva a global initiative "VISION 2020: The Right to Sight."

The objective of the initiative is to eliminate avoidable blindness by 2020 and so reduce the global burden of blindness, which currently affects an estimated 40 to 45 million people worldwide.

Among the organizations supporting this initiative are the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO), through its constituency of the International Federation of Ophthalmological Societies (IFOS), and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and its task force and partnership of participating International Non Government Development Organizations (INGDO).

Coordination with Vision for the Future

Leaders of the IAPB and othermet with the International Council of Ophthalmology in July 2001 in Buenos Aires and on other occasions to discuss coordination and cooperation between VISION 2020: The Right to Sight and the Vision for the Future, the International Ophthalmology Strategic Plan To Preserve and Restore Vision.

Vision for the Future is a global initiative to decrease avoidable vision loss and blindness by advanced education, enhanced eye care standards, sustained advocacy and increased research.

While VISION 2020 comes from a public health perspective, Vision for the Future focuses on how ophthalmologists and ophthalmologic organizations can contribute to preservation and restoration of vision.

Sponsored by the ICO and the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis (AOI), Vision for the Future was defined at a series of conferences with broad international participation, starting in February 1999.

For more information

For additional perspectives and details on VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, see:

• an editorial by Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS on the Global Initiative
  
  
• information on twinning of ophthalmologic organizations as one strategy for supporting the initiative
  
  
• the Web site for VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, created by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness
  
  
• the WHO fact sheet on the VISION 2020 global initiative
  
  
• other WHO fact sheets related to blindness (see #142 - 148 and #213 to 216).

Next: Global Ophthalmology and the Global Initiative

Also see: Vision for the Future