A new chapter for vision
Dr Astrid Bonfield meets then Malawi Health Minister Jean Kalilani while launching the trachoma programme for The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust.
Dr Astrid Bonfield, is Chief Executive of the Vision Catalyst Fund reflects on a journey that has led to the development of a new global fund focussed on bringing vision to a billion people around the world.
I’ve spent my working life in international development, starting by running a local NGO working in squatter camps in Zimbabwe, through policy jobs in the Foundation sector, and in the latter 15 years, running both The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and then The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust.
Working in the grant making sector is an enormous privilege, it means you can take a top line strategic view of how to create positive change, particularly in these last two foundations which both ‘spent out’ their funds within a fixed period. Working in a spend out foundations means you have to be focused on results – you only have one go at getting things right.
It was while we were investigating what programme that would deliver the greatest impact across the Commonwealth for the Trust, in just one five year programme, that I came across the fact that four out of people who are blind in the world don’t need to be. They could have had their sight saved or preserved. This seemed to be an extraordinary statistic, particularly as loss of sight has such a great impact on individual’s ability to work and to access education and on whole country economies.
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, through working with a broad coalition of partners across the Commonwealth was able to deliver real success during its lifetime, including moving towards the elimination of blinding trachoma, an ancient and painful disease affecting some of the most marginalised people in the world.
Inspired by this work, a group of organisations decided to come together to see if we could take the right to sight to the next level. Could we set up a global fund for sight that would be catalytic and bring vision to everyone, everywhere within a generation? Essilor, the world largest lens manufacturer, Standard Chartered Bank, UBS, The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness and philanthropist James Chen all joined this journey, with a united vision to bring both glasses and eye health services to the billion people in the world who currently have no access to eye care services.
So here we are in a COVID-19 world driving forward the work through Zoom calls in attics and spare rooms, but still determined to bring innovative financing and government driven programmes to deliver eye care at scale. We will start with a couple of pilots, hopefully before the end of the year, to prove the concept and learn from doing. We will work with everyone to ensure that services are delivered where the need is greatest, and we will do this through partnership with others always ensuring that access to sight services can be sustained.