Seven Years On: The Research Bet That Reframed Global Development

Last autumn marked the seventh anniversary of the publication of PROSPER I, a groundbreaking research trial that supercharged my philanthropic journey in campaigning for universal vision correction.

It proved that one of the simplest and most cost-effective interventions – a pair of reading glasses – could unlock immense human potential. But as we charge into the final stretch toward the ‘2030 IN SIGHT’ target, our actions now must be deliberate, bold, and urgent.

The battle to demonstrate ‘why’ to support vision correction

For too long, poor vision was stuck in the “health silo,” seen as a low priority and left at the bottom of the pile when compared to more visibly urgent crises like AIDS, malaria, or child malnutrition.

To move the needle for the 2.2 billion people with poor vision, we realised we needed a different approach. We had to stop framing affordable eye care solely as a health problem and instead reframe it as an economic challenge. But to do this, we needed more than intuition; we needed evidence.

In 2018, in partnership with Amalgamated Plantations Pvt Ltd, Orbis International, Queen’s University Belfast, and VisionSpring, PROSPER I broke through the lens of eye care as a health issue, and demonstrated how achieving vision correction is the “golden thread” to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The research breakthrough that drove policy change

The PROSPER I study was the first randomised controlled trial of its kind. Conducted in Assam, India, the trial involved 751 people, most of whom were female tea leaf pickers with uncorrected presbyopia. The intervention was simple: providing low-cost reading glasses to evaluate the link between near vision and workplace productivity.

The results were staggering. Workers with glasses plucked around 5kg more tea each day than those without – a 22% increase in productivity.

This boost is the equivalent of an extra day of productivity a week, something that can have a great impact on family income.

The Multiplier Effect and a Clear Path Forward

The influence of PROSPER I rippled immediately. The findings were instrumental in advancing the case for vision correction as a cost-effective intervention. They gave me the ‘proof’ to make the case for vision correction as a global development issue.

Armed with the results of the trial, the Clearly campaign – which I founded as a global campaign to enable access to glasses for everyone in the world – helped to change the existing conversation about vision correction. We showed that vision correction was the golden thread to achieving the SDGs, and the social justice and productivity gains that could be secured worldwide by making them universally available.

A cornerstone moment came when all 53 of the Commonwealth Heads of Government – at their meeting in 2018 – committed to achieving the aim of ‘quality eye care for all’. From there, momentum continued and culminated in the historic UN General Assembly resolution on Vision in 2021, formally recognising vision care as essential to sustainable development. The vehicle that took the issue to governments and world leaders—the Clearly campaign—was then officially integrated into the work of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).

Today, the trial’s multiplier effect endures; the vision sector led by the IAPB has recently secured a US$75 million investment from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which will dramatically scale up vision care and policy implementation worldwide.

PROSPER I was a major moment. It reframed the issue of vision correction for policy makers and government leaders and demonstrated the importance of corrected vision to people’s safety, and ability to enable them to fulfill their potential. The core solution, glasses, has been around for 700 years, but it took the political will and a strategic reframing to achieve the global momentum we have today.

As we celebrate the seventh anniversary of this landmark moment, we are not just reflecting on a single achievement, but on the crucial lesson that commitment and perseverance can solve the world’s most intractable problems. We must now match that early ambition with determination to fulfill the 2030 promise: universal access to eye care for all.