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The Fred Hollows Foundation has been a strong supporter and member of the IAPB for 15 years and is proud to be the Strategic Partner at this year’s IAPB 2030 IN SIGHT LIVE.
The Foundation will leverage this opportunity to harness collective efforts to end avoidable blindness.
2030 IN SIGHT LIVE gains momentum with The Fred Hollows Foundation
Addressing vision loss is a critical and urgent challenge that is key to delivering better educational outcomes, increased productivity and employment and addressing gender equity.
Every person deserves the right to good eye care. The Fred Hollows Foundation works with partners to tackle the barriers preventing people accessing the services they need, and we use our influence to elevate eye health and integrate it into wider systems.
For the past 15 years, we have proudly supported the IAPB in these efforts.
As the Strategic Partner at this year’s 2030 IN SIGHT LIVE, The Foundation is determined to leverage this opportunity to harness a collective effort to end avoidable blindness. Even with all the commendable efforts being made, the challenge is slipping out of our grasp as populations continue to age and grow.
As those of us know in the eye health sector, the burden of avoidable blindness is increasing globally. At least 1 billion people have a vision impairment that could have been or has yet to be addressed, including 43 million people who are blind.
If we don’t act now, we know that by 2050 more than 1.7 billion people will be living with avoidable vision impairment.
More than 55 percent of these cases are women and girls.
But we also know that this is a challenge we can meet. More than 90 percent of vision loss is preventable or treatable.
Partner organisations can be catalysts for change, but investments in eye health by national governments are critical to scaling eye health solutions that exist and work.
The Foundation’s own research, released in partnership with Victoria University in Australia, demonstrates what we already know – investment in eye care has a great economic return.
Every $US1 invested in treating cataract delivers an economic return of $US20.50 confirming cataract surgery is among the highest return on investment of any disease interventions modelled in similar investment cases.
Cost-effective solutions exist for the most common causes of blindness and vision impairment.
Through a systemic approach and sustained investment in systems change we can strengthen eye health services and demonstrate positive impacts on multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
When eye health is embedded into national health policies and practices, we can deliver sustainable eye health services that are accessible, equitable and inclusive.
As a sector, we need to take collective action. We need to be bold and proactive in engaging with governments and other key stakeholders on the social, economic and development benefits of investing in eye health if we are to end avoidable blindness and vision loss for all.
