title: The management of global blindness.
abstract: There is currently a concerted global effort to develop and implement a plan to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020, through the World Health Organisation and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness initiative VISION 2020. Vision loss through uncorrected refractive error may affect as many as 500 million people and is formally included in the initiative. There is a need for optometrists to participate at individual, community, national and international levels. This paper outlines the magnitude and the causes of global blindness, and the structure under which global blindness is managed.