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Everyone, if they live long enough, will experience at least one eye condition in their lifetime that will require appropriate care. Globally, at least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness, of whom at least 1 billion have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed. Tens of millions have a severe vision impairment and could benefit from rehabilitation which they are not currently receiving. The burden of eye conditions and vision impairment is not borne equally: it is often far greater in low-and middle-income countries, among older people and in women, and in rural and disadvantaged communities.

Fortunately, thanks to concerted action taken over the past 30 years, progress has been made in many areas. In 1999, the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness,“Vision 2020: the Right to Sight”, intensified global advocacy efforts, strengthened national prevention of blindness programmes and supported the development of national eye care plans. This momentum was maintained by four WHA resolutions: WHA56. 26 (2003); WHA59. 25 (2006); WHA62. 1 (2009), and WHA66. 11 (2013). The 2009 and 2013 resolutions were accompanied by WHO action plans, the most recent of which,“Universal eye health: a global action plan 2014–2019”, called for universal access to comprehensive eye care services and set an ambitious global target to reduce “prevalence of avoidable visual impairment by 25% by 2019”. A report presented at the Seventieth WHA in May 2017 detailed the considerable progress made in implementing the 2014–2019 global action plan (resolution WHA66. 4). At the …