[5][6] In 1999, IAPB and the World Health Organization launched Vision 2020: The Right to Sight, a global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness,[1][7] which has achieved some success, though it did not meet all its goals.
It builds partnerships to generate change at local and international level, and provides information on eye health to enable the development of good policy and practice, including publishing resources in journal, books and a website.
[16] It has over 150 members, mainly NGOs and civil society, corporate organisations, professional bodies and research institutions who are working in the prevention of blindness.
[17] IAPB coordinates activities of more than 150 organizations in over 100 countries which cooperate to improve and ensure quality of eye care.
[19][20][8] The initiative was intended to use improvements in disease control, human resource development and infrastructure development to promote "A world in which nobody is needlessly visually impaired, where those with unavoidable vision loss can achieve their full potential" by eliminating or reducing the main causes of avoidable blindness throughout the world by the year 2020.
Remaining challenges to management of avoidable blindness include population size, gender disparities in access to eyecare, and the available professional workforce.
[8] By March 2022, 14 countries had reported achieving elimination goals for trachoma, but it remains hyperendemic in parts of rural Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.
[8] Childhood blindness was found to be poorly represented in epidemiological data, which may underestimate the extent, and there is a need for improvement.
A need to increase the focus on primary healthcare and prevention to ensure early recognition and treatment of childhood blindness has been identified.
There appears to have been a global reduction the prevalence of uncorrected refraction error causing poor vision during the project.
Getting prevention of blindness onto the healthcare agenda of the WHO and its member states ensured that those countries included allocations for eye care in their budgets.
In 2017 The Lancet Global Health Commission reported that avoidable blindness figures were set to triple to 115 million by 2050, but the latest data from the same journal has reduced that forecast to about 60 million This has been attributed in part to the function of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness in bringing together a community of active organisations, and providing a platform and voice for collective action.
Started by the Lions Clubs International Foundation in 1999, it was handed over to IAPB who has been coordinating and supporting the day's marking ever since.
Papers usually relate to the topics: population, visual impairment, cataract surgery, public health and trachoma.
[32] The IAPB compiles lists of good practices and essential equipment for managing specific conditions in consultation with panels of experts.