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Improving eye health is a practical and cost-effective way of unlocking the potential for individual and shared progress. Correcting vision improves educational outcomes, increases personal earnings by 5%, and increases productivity of employed workers living in poverty by more than 20%.

Image by KM Asad for The Fred Hollows Foundation.
SDG 01 No Poverty

A simple pair of glasses

Image by KM Asad for The Fred Hollows Foundation

More than 2.2 billion people, almost one-third of humanity, are living with vision impairment. At least 1.1 billion people experience sight loss because they do not have access to the eye health services they need. Vision impairment remains shaped by geographic, social, and economic circumstance. We know that 90% of avoidable sight loss is experienced by people living in low- and middle-income countries and it remains the case that the poorest and most marginalised groups in countries of all income levels – including women, children, youth, persons with disabilities, older persons, indigenous peoples, local communities, refugees and internally displaced persons and migrants – are at greatest risk of losing their sight and being denied a sustainable, prosperous and equitable future.

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