The Need for Management Capacity to Achieve VISION 2020 in Sub-Saharan Africa

Globally, there are 314 million people with vision impairment, of whom 269 million people have low vision and 45 million are blind [1,2]. The geographic distribution of visual impairment is not uniform and more than 90% of the world’s visually impaired live in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, with around 11% of the world’s population, has about 20% of the world’s blindness [1]. This represents the highest regional burden of blindness in the world. VISION 2020: The Right to Sight is a broad initiative whose goal is to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020 (see Box 1). Whether this initiative goes the way of other unrealized slogans of the past, or whether it can actually be met still remains to be seen. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are still vast populations with limited or no access to eye services. Progress has been made in some places, however, and there are lessons we can learn from these that will help us come closer to realizing VISION 2020 goals. In this article, we examine the need for dedicated managers if VISION 2020 goals are to be achieved in Africa.