Most readers of the Community Eye Health Journal will have heard of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), but they may not be aware of exactly what the organisation does and how it functions. The purpose of this article is to give a brief overview of what IAPB does and how it contributes to the elimination of avoidable blindness in the world

Ackland, Peter

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Ackland, P (2009) Contributing to achieve the goal of VISION 2020.Community Eye Health, 22 (69). pp. 1-3. ISSN 0953-6833Downloaded from: http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/20158/Usage GuidelinesPlease refer to usage guidelines at http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/policies.html or alterna-tively contact researchonline@lshtm.ac.uk.Available under license: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivativeshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/Most readers of this journal will have heard of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), but they may not be aware of exactly what the organisation does and how it functions. The purpose of this article is to give a brief overview of what IAPB does and how it contributes to the elimination of avoidable blindness in the world. The IAPB was established in 1975 as a coordinating umbrella organisation to lead international efforts in the prevention of blindness.IAPB presently has 97 members, which include: the major international non- governmental development organisations (NGDOs) involved in eye health, the interna-tional professional bodies representing ophthalmologists and optometrists, univer-sities, World Health Organization (WHO) collaborating centres, some national eye care NGDOs, and five major corporate institutions that fund VISION 2020 programmes.IAPB’s member organisations collectively deliver more than 1,500 eye health programmes, in coordination with more than 1,000 partners in over 100 countries.IAPB is the key partner that works on the VISION 2020 initiative with WHO, in particular the WHO prevention of blindness and deafness unit (PBD). This close association, added to its knowledge of eye health programmes based upon the experience of its member organisations, means that IAPB is uniquely placed to provide strategic leadership to VISION 2020. Its work adds value and contributes to the achievement of the initiative in the following specific areas: knowledge and expertise, advocacy, promotion of VISION 2020 programmes for the prevention of blindness, and coordination.Knowledge and technical expertiseIAPB provides knowledge and technical expertise to support the development of quality eye health programmes.VISION 2020 workshopsIAPB works in partnership with the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) to deliver annually more than twenty workshops that promote VISION 2020 around the world. Topics include planning at national and district levels, specific disease control approaches, and advocacy. So far, 150 countries have participated  8th General Assembly of IAPBVOLUME 22 | ISSUE 69 | MARCH 2009 Community Eye Health JournalPeter Ackland Chief Executive, International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK.Continues overleaf ➤Contributing to achieve the goal of VISION 2020Mamoun MirghaniPatients waiting at an eye camp: 64% of people who are blind in the world today are women. SUDANIN ThIS ISSue 1 Contributing to achieve the goal of VISION 2020 Peter Ackland3 excellence and equity in eye care Nick Astbury4 Blindness and cataract in children in developing countries  Parikshit Gogate and Mohammad Muhit  6   Converting from eCCe to SICS  Nick Astbury  8  Blindness and visual impairment due to retinal diseasesShaheen Shah10  Perspectives on primary eye careGVS Murthy and Usha Raman12  human resources for eye care: changing the way we thinkUsha Raman1COMMUNIty EyE HEALtH JOURNAL | VOL 22 ISSUE 69 | MARCH 2009 eXChANGe13  A new clamp for bilamellar tarsal rotation for trachomatous trichiasisKeith Waddell14  Vision loss and visual hallucinations: the Charles Bonnet syndrome Paddy Ricard hOW TO15 Administering a subconjunctival injectionSue Stevens16 NeWS AND NOTICeSVolume 22 | Issue 69 | March 2009Commissioning editors for Issue 69Dr Nick Astbury and Dr Usha RamanContent editors for Issue 69Dr Nick Astbury and Dr Paddy RicardElmien Wolvaardt Ellison is currently on maternity leaveeditorial committeeDr Nick AstburyProfessor Allen FosterProfessor Clare GilbertDr Murray McGavinDr Ian MurdochDr GVS MurthyDr Daksha PatelDr Richard WormaldDr David YorstonRegional consultantsDr Sergey Branchevski (Russia)Dr Miriam Cano (Paraguay)Professor Gordon Johnson (UK)Dr Susan Lewallen (Tanzania)Dr Wanjiku Mathenge (Kenya)Dr Joseph Enyegue Oye (Francophone Africa)Dr Babar Qureshi (Pakistan)Dr BR Shamanna (India)Professor Hugh Taylor (Australia)Dr Min Wu (China)Dr Andrea Zin (Brazil)AdvisorsDr Liz Barnett (Teaching and Learning) Catherine Cross (Infrastructure and Technology) Dr Pak Sang Lee (Ophthalmic Equipment)Sue Stevens (Ophthalmic Nursing)editorial assistant Anita ShahDesign Lance BellersPrinting Newman ThomsonOnline edition Sally Parsleyemail web@cehjournal.orgInformation serviceemail jenni.sandford@Lshtm.ac.ukWebsiteBack issues are available at:www.cehjournal.orgSubscriptions and back issuesCommunity Eye Health Journal, International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK.Tel +44 207 612 7964/72Fax +44 207 958 8317 email admin@cehjournal.org The Community Eye Health Journal is published four times a year and sent free to applicants from low- and middle-income countries. French, Spanish, and Chinese translations are available and a special supplement is produced for India (in English). Please send details of your name, occupation, and postal address to the Community Eye Health Journal, at the address above. Subscription rates for applicants elsewhere: one year UK £50; three years UK £100. Send credit card details or an international cheque/banker’s order made payable to London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to the address above.© International Centre for Eye Health, LondonArticles may be photocopied, reproduced or translated provided theseare not used for commercial or personal profi t. Acknowledgementsshould be made to the author(s) and to Community Eye Health Journal. Woodcut-style graphics by Victoria Francis.ISSN 0953-6833The journal is produced in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Signed articles are the responsibility of the named authors alone and do not necessarily refl ect the policies of the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization does not warrant that the information contained in this publication is complete and correct and shall not be liable for any damages incurred as a result of its use. The mention of specifi c companies or of certain manufacturers’ products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the World Health Organization in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.Supporting VISION 2020: The Right to SightThe journal is produced in collaboration with the World Health OrganizationCONTRIBuTING TO AChIeVe The GOAL OF VISION 2020 Continued Community Eye Health Journalin these workshops and 104 have developed a national VISION 2020 plan. In the future, we hope that the IAPB regions and national coordinators for blindness control will provide us with greater input as to workshop topics and target audiences.Specialist committeesA number of IAPB specialist programme committees advise and promote best practice based upon the practical experience of our members’ eye health programmes throughout the world. Presently, there are committees for human resource development, technology, cataract, low vision, refractive error, and childhood blindness. Discussion groups also exist to share experience on gender, sustainability, partnership, and primary eye care. In the future, our intention is to disseminate the work of these committees more widely, for example by creating a dedicated section on the VISION 2020 website1 where all key documents and information will be accessible.Advocacy IAPB is involved in advocacy at different levels. It aims to achieve policy change, so that eye health can be integrated, and given greater priority, within national health care services.Advocating at WhO levelIAPB has worked with the IAPB East Mediterranean regional chairperson and his team and the WHO PBD unit to secure greater recognition of the importance of blindness control work within WHO structures.  Our advocacy efforts have already yielded impressive results. The 2006 World Health Assembly resolution 59.25 requested that prevention of blindness and visual impairment be added to WHO’s medium-term strategic plan 2008–13, thus giving greater priority to the prevention of blindness on the global health agenda. It built on the earlier achievement of resolution 56.26 in 2003, which urged all member states to set up national plans by 2005.2 At the next World Health Assembly, in May 2009, it is expected that a WHO action plan for the control of avoidable blindness will be approved. This will greatly enhance the importance attached to VISION 2020 within the WHO system and will make WHO a stronger ally to promote the initiative at country level. Gathering evidenceIAPB also draws together the evidence that will help us to argue more effectively for prioritising resources to support VISION 2020 national plans. For example, IAPB produced a document linking the prevention of blindness with the achievement of the United Nations’ millennium development goals (MDGs),3 particularly the alleviation of poverty (MDG 1). This is a powerful advocacy message, which can be promoted by IAPB and its members.World Sight DayIAPB promotes World Sight Day, the key date in our annual calendar to promote awareness of VISION 2020. In 2009, the main theme will be gender. In 2010, when  WHO releases new fi gures on the prevalence of global visual impairment, the theme will be ‘State of the world’s sight’. Both these themes will provide exciting opportunitiesfor advocacy.Promotion of VISION 2020 programmesIAPB has been successful in negotiating and subsequently coordinating arrangements with a number of donors to supportVISION 2020 development programmes. These are then implemented by IAPB member organisations with local partners. Such programmes include: the Standard Chartered Bank’s ‘Seeing is Believing’ programme, which is providing more thanUS $30 million for rural and urban compre-hensive eye care programmes; the EyeFund, which will provide US $18 million to eye hospitals and IAPB members, in the form of low-interest loans, to enhance their VISION 2020 activities; the Carl-Zeiss IAPB training centre programme, which will provide US $1 million for the development of fi ve training centres to enhance the quality of training of ophthalmic personnel; and the Optometry Giving Sight initiative, which raises funds to develop refractive error programmes.Note from the editors: about this issueThis issue of the Community Eye Health Journal reports on a selection of themes discussed during the 8th General Assembly of IAPB (25–28 August 2008). The articles from pages 4 to 12 do not generally contain original results from the authors; they are reports inspired by specifi c sessions, courses, or symposia which took place during the General Assembly. Relevant details are indicated in the blue panel at the beginning of each article.To view the Book of Abstracts from the 8th General Assembly, go to: www.v2020.org/publications-IAPBFor more information about the original presentations, email: communications@v2020.orgIAPBCopyright © 2009 Peter Ackland. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The theme of the 8th General Assembly was ‘Excellence and equity in eye care’ – super-lative sound bites perhaps, but when those words are considered in the context of VISION 2020, they take on a meaning that should define all our efforts to combat avoidable blindness. Striving for excellenceAllen Foster, in his inspiring ‘Sir John Wilson’ oration, urged that excellence should mean more than simply quality in clinical care or the latest technology. Excellence, he said, should involve aspiring for the ideal in research, management, evidence-based clinical practice, and non-clinical patient care. It should be both our individual and corporate goal. Everyone involved in eye care should not compromise their own high standards in striving for excellence in their work. Of course, there are many barriers to overcome, not least the lack of infra-structure and resources that besets so many developing countries. But that is no reason not to strive for excellence and respect the basic human right of all individuals to receive high-quality eye care.VISION 2020 is as important as everGN Rao, in his address to the Assembly, defined excellence in terms of concept planning, infrastructure, quality of human resources, and operating systems – in fact, all the building blocks of VISION 2020 that require the use of ‘heart, head and hands’. He wrote in 20051: “70% of the population [in developing countries] live in rural areas, about half of whom are economically deprived with significant social barriers. There are very poor public education or information systems and funding for blindness programmes in most of these countries is virtually non-existent.” There has been little improvement since and, in 2009, the need for VISION 2020: The Right to Sight remains as acute as ever.equity and moral justiceEquity is about the fair distribution of resources throughout a group of people according to population, not individual, need. Equity means not discriminating between people of different ethnicity, religion, age, gender, or social class, and delivering services in an acceptable, accessible, and affordable way. Equity, Foster reiterated, is a right founded on moral justice. Challenges to service deliveryTwo recent papers illustrate the challenges that we still face in the delivery of an excellent and equitable service. A review by Hans Limburg et al. of recent surveys on blindness and visual impairment in Latin America2 analysed data from nine countries and concluded that 43% to 88% of all blindness in Latin America is curable, being caused by cataract and refractive errors. Although simple and cost-effective strategies do exist, they need to be made available to more people. In addition, the visual outcomes of cataract surgery in most of the survey areas gave cause for concern, particularly in the case of cataract surgery without intraocular lens implantation.The Pakistan national blindness and visual impairment survey3 revealed a prevalence of total blindness more than three times higher in poor clusters than in affluent clusters. It also showed that, in poor communities, the cataract coverage and uptake of spectacle provision were less than half compared with rich communities. Inequity of access is an important factor even for relatively straightforward interven-tions such as the provision of spectacles. ConclusionThe ideals of excellence and equity are no less relevant in developing countries than they are in Europe and the West. All patients are equally deserving of the same high standard of care.References1 Rao GN. Eye care delivery for VISION 2020. International Congress Series (2005);1282: 275–277. 2 Limburg H, von-Bischhoffshausen F, Gomez P, Silva J C, Foster A. Review of recent surveys on blindness and visual impairment in Latin America. Br J Ophthalmol 2008;92: 315–319.3 Jadoon MZ, Dineen B, Bourne RRA, Shah SP, Khan MA, Johnson GJ, Gilbert CE, Khan MD on behalf of the Pakistan National Eye Survey Study Group. Prevalence of blindness and visual impairment in Pakistan: the Pakistan National Blindness and Visual Impairment Survey. Br Med J 2008;336: 29–32.Coordination The success of VISION 2020 depends on the contributions of many different stakeholders, including WHO, national and local governments, the private sector, the not-for-profit sector, and local communities. It is therefore essential to have in place:•	a good exchange of information•	coordination•	collaboration.IAPB has a key role in ensuring that these three elements are in place and that all stake-holders work to a common agenda. Our website,4 which we supplement with regular electronic newsletters to our members, is an important source of information. We also hold a Council of Members’ meeting annually and a General Assembly every four years.  ConclusionMuch has been achieved over the first ten years of VISION 2020, but a great deal more is required if we are to realise our ambition to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020. It is progress at the regional and national levels that will actually lead us to the goals of VISION 2020. Our advocacy work needs to reach a larger number of decision makers, particularly in countries and regions where the level of avoidable blindness continues to be high. We need to attract new funding to support our aspirations to expand our regional presence and, to do this, we need to be better at communicating with potential supporters. When resources allow, we intend to ensure that the regional structure of IAPB is strengthened (see below), so that all regions have a full-time regional coordinator, as presently only the West Pacific and Latin America regions are represented. Above all, we must continue to develop the many partnerships that already exist and craft new relationships – by working together, we can achieve so much more.Worldwide, visual outcomes of cataract surgery are still a cause for concern. SOMALIA•	Appoint a full-time coordinator in every region•	Provide better support to national. prevention of blindness committees and coordinators, through training and visits.•	Make VISION 2020 programme information available through regional websites.•	Bring key stakeholders together at regional and subregional levels to share best practice and promote coordination amongst the many agencies involved.•	Encourage collaborative VISION 2020 development programmes and help to broker implementation funding for IAPB members and their partners.•	Promote a collaborative approach to our advocacy work.Plans for strengthening the regional structureNick AstburyConsultant Ophthalmic Surgeon, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust, Colney Lane, Norwich NR4 7UY, UK. Murray McGavinExcellence and equity in eye careReferences1 www.vision2020.org 2 www.iapb.org/WHA_59/WHA_progress.doc3 www.iapb.org/review_pub.htm4 www.iapb.orgCopyright © 2009 Nick Astbury. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Nick Astbury. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Contributing to achieve the goal of VISION 2020.

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