Sightsavers pledges five eye health commitments ahead of global summit

Sightsavers has vowed to improve eye care services and speed up progress towards eliminating avoidable blindness, as part of five key commitments ahead of the first Global Summit for Eye Health.

Alongside a joint commitment with CBM, Sightsavers has pledged to expand its inclusive vision and eye care programmes, strengthen the eye health workforce, expand its school health programmes, support countries to eliminate neglected tropical diseases, and continue backing global World Health Organization (WHO) eye health initiatives.

The five commitments

1. Sightsavers’ inclusive vision and eye care programmes will expand to 25 countries by 2030, restoring sight for up to two million people through cataract operations and providing pairs of glasses for up to 3.5 million people.
2. Sightsavers will expand the scale and scope of its School Health Integrated Programme to 12 countries by 2030.
3. Sightsavers will strengthen eye health workforce development in 20 countries, both directly and through strategic partnerships with the College of Ophthalmology of Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, West Africa College of Surgeons and Moorfields Lions Korle Bu Trust.
4. Sightsavers will provide technical and programmatic support to at least 19 countries to advance progress towards the elimination of trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, as a public health problem. It will also support 11 countries to accelerate progress towards the elimination of onchocerciasis.
5. Sightsavers will support WHO with continued technical and financial support for the SPECS 2030 and the cataract elimination initiatives, and the development of advocacy and technical documents on vision and road safety, using programmatic evidence.

In a recent blog about the summit, Sightsavers’ deputy CEO Dominic Haslam said: “In a world of complex and intractable problems, eye health is an issue where we can collaborate, act and have concrete results in a short timeframe; and build systems to protect that positive change for generations to come.”

The summit, hosted by Antigua and Barbuda on the margins of the 2026 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, is expected to bring together governments, donors, the private sector and civil society organisations to mobilise greater action and investment in eye health.