Reading glasses within reach: 24 governments win backing to bring basic eye care to millions

For a grandmother who cannot thread a needle or a farmer who cannot read a price tag, the fix is often a pair of reading glasses that costs very little — if only the clinic stocked them. The Vision Action Fund has committed at least $10 million in multi-year funding to 24 governments, from Bangladesh and Kenya to Mexico and Peru, to fold basic eye care and near-vision services into everyday health systems and make glasses easy to get. Nigeria's health minister, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, said the country's presidential programme has already given reading glasses to more than 1 million people through primary care and pledged 3 million more over the next three years. More than 2 billion people live with vision impairment; for about 1 billion of them, it is preventable or treatable.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: funding & finance