I am co-founder and vice president of the Focus on Vision Foundation of the Netherlands. We are able to mass produce adjustable spectacles based on the Alvarez/Lohmann principle. These adjustable spectacles, called the Focusspec, were specially designed for low income people in remote areas. Especially developing countries, yet even some segments of the USA. At is stage we have exported smaller and larger quantities to 36 countries. We challenge (invite) all existing initiatives to join forces to really realize the goal as set by Vision 2020. Certain organizations want to restrict the dispensing of glasses to optometrists exclusively. With the pace of production of certified optometrists worldwide this may well be a pipe dream. This is not in the interest of the needy. Let us join our strong forces.
I am a co-founder of Kopernik (kopernik.info), the technology marketplace for the developing world. I enjoyed reading this insightful article, and wanted to share my thoughts on the role of the government to scale up eyeglass distribution in the developing world.
In my previous roles working for the UN, I worked with many governments in developing countries, and in most cases, they face major funding shortfalls and lack the necessary human resources and structure to manage and implement basic government services,. Typically the poorer the country is, the weaker its government is.
In such situations, betting on developing country governments to develop a policy to subsidize the cost of eyeglasses, allocate funds, set up the distribution mechanism is simply too much to ask for. There are chronic shortages of basic health facilities and health personnel in the first place. Life-threatening issues, such as HIV/Malaria/TB and vaccine programs are given priority, and even these areas do not get sufficient attention and funding. It would be difficult to imagine that a government in this situation would even consider allocating funds to distribute eyeglasses on a national scale. This doesn’t even happen in most developed countries.
Another thing to consider is that as many developing countries, especially the poorest ones, rely heavily on external aid, and often the big donors have a say in the government decisions. From my experience, such agencies would be hesitant to fund emerging solutions on a large scale, given their natural tendency to avoid risk.
Having said that, I have seen eyeglasses distributed by the government to victims of natural disaster, so it can happen, though it is rare. The point is that while government can play a role, it is unlikely to be a major player in the distribution of eyeglasses in developing countries, and thus unlikely to solve the scalability issue.
As you say, business is a critical player, but typically focused on more lucrative markets - not the poorest, more remote areas. The solution in reaching the last mile population therefore lies in the approach that is referred to in your article. Using philanthropic funding, non-profits can take risks and trial innovative approaches, and prove the positive impact on the people’s life. Non-profits need to be persistent, invent cost-effective distribution mechanism to the last mile using creative partnership with local NGO and microfinance institutions, demonstrate its impact with data, and continue to engage the government, aid community, and businesses, with patience. Non-profit in this scenario plays more active role in serving the unreached.
Vision remains a major problem around the world, as the author states. But in the non-profit world an organization called the Lions have been working to bring glasses throughout the world for over 75 years. They have over 1.4 million members and re-cycle millions of glasses each year taking them to many areas of the world at no cost (repeat: no cost) to the needy. Certainly they can use all the help they can get, but your author might acknowledge that the Lions clubs are available for direct volunteerism as well as to receive donations dedicated to vision. Such clubs might be perceived as “old school” in the age of the internet, but they are a tried and true component in the quest to make the world see.
I’m taking a class called Advanced Topics in Design Management at Parsons the New School for Design. The class focuses on social entrepreneurship. Throughout the semester we have studied a variety of different ventures. One thing that all successful ventures have in common is that they target to an obvious unmet need. I think providing eyeglasses at a lower price point is a good example of the essence of what social entrepreneurship is and why it’s important. It is not charity; it’s a sustaining movement that promotes sustaining change. Cost is obviously a problem, but there are ways around it, for example, producing the glasses in China. Another problem is the lack of opticians (1 per 8 million in Mali,) nevertheless, that problem was solved through the production of adjustable eyeglasses. Social entrepreneurs face many challenges; maybe the most challenging aspect is to actually make a profit of selling products to the poorest people in the world.
The article raises the question, why haven’t any of these approaches succeded on a larger scale? I believe that the different ventures mentioned above have certainly succeded in many ways, they have made a tangible and measurable impact on those people who actually have better vision now because of the glasses that have been provided to them. Although these organization haven’t reached everyone that needs glasses, they do make a big difference in these people’s lives. In the long-term, I think it will be possible, especially for social entrepreneurs to succeed on a larger scale, because social ventures often have the ability to pursue ideas that challenges the system and they have the ability to experiment and fail more so than for-profit ventures.
have you investigated whether specs can be provided in association with micro-credit? If as is commonly stated, corrected eyesight improves econoomic productivity (you say “the impact of blurry vision is real and extremely costly to the poor”) then, on average, recipients of spectacles should get some improvement in income (or job prospects) and should be seen as good prospects who can repay a loan for the specs over the course of a few months.
if the cost of specs can be lowered to as little as USD2 per pair, the cost of delivery to the point of need will then become a highly significant proportion of the whole cost. It might be better to make the specs more expensive, giving a profit incentive to wholesale distributors to send them out through their retail networks, which achieve good penetration eg cigarettes, radio batteries, plastic utensils, mobile phone vouchers, etc. Provided that people can get loans to buy specs from the microcredit agencies or through a mobile banking system (?) they will buy the specs.
On donating recycled second hand glasses, I understand it’s a not very efficient method as most get thrown away and only a small proportion reach the end beneficiaries.
Vision Aid Overseas receives approximately 1 - 1.2 million pairs of glasses a year into its recycling process, which is designed to identify glasses in a very good condition that we can use as a stock in development work. Typically they are able to use 10% of what we receive.
The real story here is a poor 14 year old kid from Mexico with absolutely no resources nor funding has solved the issue of providing self prescribing eye care to the poor. His name is Kevin Widderich and he is forming an organization called http://www.visionforthepoor.com. Truly an inspirational story. Last I spoke to him he convinced a patent attorney to cover the cost of patenting his idea. I am sure the concept will launch shortly. I believe it will work.
COMMENTS
BY Jan in 't Veld
ON March 8, 2011 03:10 AM
I am co-founder and vice president of the Focus on Vision Foundation of the Netherlands. We are able to mass produce adjustable spectacles based on the Alvarez/Lohmann principle. These adjustable spectacles, called the Focusspec, were specially designed for low income people in remote areas. Especially developing countries, yet even some segments of the USA. At is stage we have exported smaller and larger quantities to 36 countries. We challenge (invite) all existing initiatives to join forces to really realize the goal as set by Vision 2020. Certain organizations want to restrict the dispensing of glasses to optometrists exclusively. With the pace of production of certified optometrists worldwide this may well be a pipe dream. This is not in the interest of the needy. Let us join our strong forces.
BY Toshi
ON April 16, 2011 12:38 AM
I am a co-founder of Kopernik (kopernik.info), the technology marketplace for the developing world. I enjoyed reading this insightful article, and wanted to share my thoughts on the role of the government to scale up eyeglass distribution in the developing world.
In my previous roles working for the UN, I worked with many governments in developing countries, and in most cases, they face major funding shortfalls and lack the necessary human resources and structure to manage and implement basic government services,. Typically the poorer the country is, the weaker its government is.
In such situations, betting on developing country governments to develop a policy to subsidize the cost of eyeglasses, allocate funds, set up the distribution mechanism is simply too much to ask for. There are chronic shortages of basic health facilities and health personnel in the first place. Life-threatening issues, such as HIV/Malaria/TB and vaccine programs are given priority, and even these areas do not get sufficient attention and funding. It would be difficult to imagine that a government in this situation would even consider allocating funds to distribute eyeglasses on a national scale. This doesn’t even happen in most developed countries.
Another thing to consider is that as many developing countries, especially the poorest ones, rely heavily on external aid, and often the big donors have a say in the government decisions. From my experience, such agencies would be hesitant to fund emerging solutions on a large scale, given their natural tendency to avoid risk.
Having said that, I have seen eyeglasses distributed by the government to victims of natural disaster, so it can happen, though it is rare. The point is that while government can play a role, it is unlikely to be a major player in the distribution of eyeglasses in developing countries, and thus unlikely to solve the scalability issue.
As you say, business is a critical player, but typically focused on more lucrative markets - not the poorest, more remote areas. The solution in reaching the last mile population therefore lies in the approach that is referred to in your article. Using philanthropic funding, non-profits can take risks and trial innovative approaches, and prove the positive impact on the people’s life. Non-profits need to be persistent, invent cost-effective distribution mechanism to the last mile using creative partnership with local NGO and microfinance institutions, demonstrate its impact with data, and continue to engage the government, aid community, and businesses, with patience. Non-profit in this scenario plays more active role in serving the unreached.
BY Andy Marks
ON April 16, 2011 06:18 PM
Vision remains a major problem around the world, as the author states. But in the non-profit world an organization called the Lions have been working to bring glasses throughout the world for over 75 years. They have over 1.4 million members and re-cycle millions of glasses each year taking them to many areas of the world at no cost (repeat: no cost) to the needy. Certainly they can use all the help they can get, but your author might acknowledge that the Lions clubs are available for direct volunteerism as well as to receive donations dedicated to vision. Such clubs might be perceived as “old school” in the age of the internet, but they are a tried and true component in the quest to make the world see.
BY Helena Liliendal
ON April 18, 2011 07:42 PM
I’m taking a class called Advanced Topics in Design Management at Parsons the New School for Design. The class focuses on social entrepreneurship. Throughout the semester we have studied a variety of different ventures. One thing that all successful ventures have in common is that they target to an obvious unmet need. I think providing eyeglasses at a lower price point is a good example of the essence of what social entrepreneurship is and why it’s important. It is not charity; it’s a sustaining movement that promotes sustaining change. Cost is obviously a problem, but there are ways around it, for example, producing the glasses in China. Another problem is the lack of opticians (1 per 8 million in Mali,) nevertheless, that problem was solved through the production of adjustable eyeglasses. Social entrepreneurs face many challenges; maybe the most challenging aspect is to actually make a profit of selling products to the poorest people in the world.
BY Garima
ON April 18, 2011 08:13 PM
The article raises the question, why haven’t any of these approaches succeded on a larger scale? I believe that the different ventures mentioned above have certainly succeded in many ways, they have made a tangible and measurable impact on those people who actually have better vision now because of the glasses that have been provided to them. Although these organization haven’t reached everyone that needs glasses, they do make a big difference in these people’s lives. In the long-term, I think it will be possible, especially for social entrepreneurs to succeed on a larger scale, because social ventures often have the ability to pursue ideas that challenges the system and they have the ability to experiment and fail more so than for-profit ventures.
BY Simon Jennings
ON November 29, 2011 01:35 AM
have you investigated whether specs can be provided in association with micro-credit? If as is commonly stated, corrected eyesight improves econoomic productivity (you say “the impact of blurry vision is real and extremely costly to the poor”) then, on average, recipients of spectacles should get some improvement in income (or job prospects) and should be seen as good prospects who can repay a loan for the specs over the course of a few months.
if the cost of specs can be lowered to as little as USD2 per pair, the cost of delivery to the point of need will then become a highly significant proportion of the whole cost. It might be better to make the specs more expensive, giving a profit incentive to wholesale distributors to send them out through their retail networks, which achieve good penetration eg cigarettes, radio batteries, plastic utensils, mobile phone vouchers, etc. Provided that people can get loans to buy specs from the microcredit agencies or through a mobile banking system (?) they will buy the specs.
On donating recycled second hand glasses, I understand it’s a not very efficient method as most get thrown away and only a small proportion reach the end beneficiaries.
BY Simon Jennings
ON November 29, 2011 06:04 AM
re recycled glasses
Vision Aid Overseas receives approximately 1 - 1.2 million pairs of glasses a year into its recycling process, which is designed to identify glasses in a very good condition that we can use as a stock in development work. Typically they are able to use 10% of what we receive.
BY Martin Schwartz
ON April 9, 2012 07:28 PM
The real story here is a poor 14 year old kid from Mexico with absolutely no resources nor funding has solved the issue of providing self prescribing eye care to the poor. His name is Kevin Widderich and he is forming an organization called http://www.visionforthepoor.com. Truly an inspirational story. Last I spoke to him he convinced a patent attorney to cover the cost of patenting his idea. I am sure the concept will launch shortly. I believe it will work.
BY amar biswas
ON July 2, 2012 11:48 PM
I want to work as a vision entrepreuner in west bengal, India. Please help
BY Aadesh kumar srivastava
ON March 1, 2014 06:25 AM
hii,....I am aadesh srivastav ( optometrist) plese more details join in ngo