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On the 2 November, Heads of State, health ministers, and senior representatives from across the eye health sector will gather in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, for the first Global Summit for Eye Health. It is an invitation-only political gathering, with a specific purpose to secure commitments from governments and institutions on financing, policy, and national roadmaps toward universal eye care coverage. Those commitments are due no later than World Sight Day, 8 October, leaving a five-week window between the two important dates to turn commitments into even more momentum.
Years of technical and research work, advocacy, and regional delivery on the ground have done the foundational work, much of it largely out of public view. Love Your Eyes has helped add a loud, public-facing layer, one worth naming as the Summit approaches.
For example, Every Story Counts has collected first-person accounts of vision loss and care from contributors worldwide, adding case-by-case detail alongside the sector’s existing research base. Some of it is public demand, sitting alongside the work of IAPB members. More than 25 million pledges to Love Your Eyes over the past five years, with another 5 million targeted, give the sector something concrete to point to as proof that the public is behind an argument they were already making.
And some of it is visibility for a partnership model the sector has been building for years. The eighteen Love Your Eyes Global Partners, spanning eye care manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and global health nonprofits, put a face on the successful public-private collaborations the Summit is looking to foster and celebrate.
The Love Your Eyes campaign activity has given the sector’s longer running work a public dimension it might not otherwise have had this loudly, at a moment when that visibility is useful. The Global Summit for Eye Health does not rest on campaigning, but campaigning has been part of preparing the public support needed.
