By Pelin Munis, Ph.D., CEO, RestoringVision
As we begin the start of a new year filled with hope for peace for all people in our world, and with renewed focus on all that we will achieve together in transforming the lives of people in need worldwide, I am encouraged and heartened by the global movement that took place in 2023, in which uncorrected refractive error became a priority on the global agenda.
RestoringVision is poised to lead as a global advocate and voice in this movement and is ready to increase our collaborations amongst very talented and accomplished people and organizations to move our new 3-year strategy forward and achieve our collective goals of eye care for all, no matter someone’s income or location in the world.
RestoringVision’s 2024-2026 Strategy: Pathways to Solving the Global Vision Crisis, aims to achieve transformative and radical growth. Our strategic goals for the next three years include:
- Goal 1: Radical growth of programs and impact. Radically expand the scale of RestoringVision’s programs and impact across the world to reach 10 million people annually and tens of millions thereafter.
- Goal 2: Global leadership and advocacy. Be a leading voice in solving the global vision crisis, catalyzing wider and deeper engagement by governments, donors, private sector, civil society, and other key partners.
- Goal 3: Innovation. Drive innovation that accelerates radical growth of impact to solve the global vision crisis, leveraging technology and other cutting-edge developments.
- Goal 4: Funding. Deliver the expansion of funding required to enable radical growth of programs and impact.
- Goal 5: Organization of Excellence. Continue to be an organization of excellence, ensuring the key capabilities required for radical growth of impact.
RestoringVision’s team believes that this 3-year strategic plan serves as the transformative foundation to truly expand our impact and our work worldwide so that ultimately, we can solve the global vision crisis together. I am proud of RestoringVision’s bold commitment to build bigger and better systems and programming that will allow us to provide clear sight to more people in need, thus advancing at least 8 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 826 million people worldwide only need reading glasses to correct their sight – and we are determined to reach each and every one of them in order to support more people to return to work, advance educations, sustain their livelihoods, provide for their families, and so much more.
In addition, as we look ahead and begin to advance RestoringVision’s new 3-year strategic plan, our engagement with IAPB and as a UN Friends of Vision Secretariat member continues as we move forward in advocating for a UN Special Envoy on Vision and eye health at the country levels.
RestoringVision also continues to engage with the World Health Organization in deeper ways, as we had our first meeting with the WHO Vision and Eye Care Programme leadership one on one in 2023 and continue to support the forward movement of WHO SPECS 2030 Initiative.
The beginning of a new year is always an exciting moment. The year of 2024 is full of promise and RestoringVision looks forward to continuing existing partnerships while simultaneously building new relationships that will increase our collective impact as a sector. We will build on the many successes of 2023, and together we will create new achievements, some of our greatest yet. This will only be possible with you, collectively and collaboratively.
Each year and continuing this year, we will also continue to build our RestoringVision community, with our RV family of colleagues and board, and our RV partners, including our NGO, social enterprise, and government partners, our donors, advisors, and the millions of people who have and the over 5.5M people who will receive new eyeglasses and join our community this year. Together, we will strengthen health systems, enable opportunities for learning, education, and work with clear vision, improve livelihoods and the global economy, and contribute to the quality of life for people worldwide.
Thank you for being on this journey to solve one of the biggest public health issues of our time impacting health and development. I have no doubt 2024 will be our most impactful year yet for RestoringVision, for each of you, and all of us.
