Mission
IAPB aspires to link professional bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), educational institutions, and interested individuals, with national programmes for the prevention of blindness.
According to the WHO, more than 161 million people were visually impaired, of whom 124 million people had low vision and 37 million were blind all over the world in 2002 . It has been estimated that the number of blind people will rise to 76 million by 2020. Close to 75% of this blindness is avoidable. The treatment of cataracts, which accounts for nearly half of all blindness, is one of the most cost-effective health interventions known.
In their study on the magnitude and cost of global blindness, Frick and Foster calculate that successful implementation of VISION 2020 would lead to the prevention of 429 blind-person years (defined as "one year of blindness for an individual"). This will have a dramatic effect on the lives of millions of people — those with blindness, as well as their caregivers.
The first major achievement of IAPB was the establishment of the WHO Programme for Prevention of Blindness (WHO/PBL), with which, it then entered into an official relationship.
Read more about this topic: International Agency For The Prevention Of Blindness
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“Every Age has its own peculiar faith.... Any attempt to translate into facts the mission of one Age with the machinery of another, can only end in an indefinite series of abortive efforts. Defeated by the utter want of proportion between the means and the end, such attempts might produce martyrs, but never lead to victory.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)
“The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)