Waterfronts are attractive areas for many-often competing-uses in New York City (NYC) and are seen as multifunctional locations for economic, environmental, and social activities on the interface between land and water. The NYC waterfront plays a crucial role as a first line of flood defense and in managing flood risk and protecting the city from future climate change and sea-level rise. The ci...

Our Understanding of Childhood Blindness at the Adoption of VISION 2020 in 1999 Magnitude of Childhood Blindness The global initiative—VISION 2020: The Right to Sight—launched in 1999, targeted blindness in children as one of the five priority areas of disease control [1]. Selecting childhood blindness was based on the fact that blindness in childhood can lead to decades of life spent blind and...

Cataract is the leading cause of blindness worldwide and remains an important cause of blindness and visual impairment in the United States, accounting for approximately 50% of low vision cases in adults over age 40. Cataract is the leading cause of treatable blindness among Americans of African descent age 40 and older and is the leading cause of low vision among Americans of African, Hispanic...

Vision 2020 The World Heath Organization and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness in 1999 jointly launched “Vision 2020—the right to sight.” This ambitious programme, to eliminate unnecessary blindness and promote good vision throughout the world, includes the control of blindness in children as one of its first five priorities. Given that there are estimated to be 45 millio...

Over the last 20 years, much has been achieved in controlling blindness in children. Prior to the launch of VISION 2020, a number of international initiatives and programmes had raised the profile and increased interventions for child health and survival, which also had a positive impact on eye diseases and blindness in children, e.g. the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI )(1974) and the...

Advocacy is a crucial activity for achieving the goals of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight. Progress towards the elimination of avoidable blindness depends on political will and on making available more human and financial resources. In order for this to happen, advocacy is necessary: it can influence the policies and practices of key decision makers, particularly governments, the Word Health Or...

Blindness and low vision are major causes of morbidity and have profound effects on the quality of life for many people. They inhibit mobility and economic well-being of the individuals affected as well as their families. Childhood blindness (CBL) is one of the challenges faced by the world generally and developing countries in particular. In industrialised countries, certain mechanisms for nor...