Sightsavers and International Disability Alliance (IDA) join in $1 million partnership

Sightsavers has given a new $1 million unrestricted grant to IDA to help advance disability rights worldwide.

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 26, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Sightsavers has worked in a strategic and effective partnership with the International Disability Alliance (IDA) since 2013 ? sharing expertise and resources to advance disability rights and the inclusion agenda. The two organisations have worked together to organise two Global Disability Summits, supported the development and growth of the Global Action on Disability (GLAD) Network, and jointly led major consortium initiatives to advance inclusion of persons with disabilities.

The grant will enable the global umbrella disability network to increase its advocacy work, provide technical assistance, and deliver capacity building for the world's 1.2 billion people with disabilities and their representative organisations (OPDs). The funding is unrestricted, which means it can be spent wherever it is needed, rather than being tied to a particular area of work.

This is the largest unrestricted grant Sightsavers has made during its 70 years of supporting partners, enabling the partnership with IDA to reach a new level. Behind this partnership lies a shared principle that persons with disabilities are in the best place to decide how and where resources should be deployed to realise their rights.

Yannis Vardakastanis, the President of IDA said on this occasion: "I would also like to thank you wholeheartedly for the financial support to IDA. There is no question that for us, in IDA, this partnership with Sightsavers is a flagship partnership. In the challenging times that we live in, partnerships like ours give hope and vision for disability rights. We are looking forward to continuing to work with you in the years to come."

Sir Clive Jones, Chair of Sightsavers, said: "We simply could not do what we do without the partnership between Sightsavers and IDA. We make this unprecedented show of solidarity with the firm belief that persons with disabilities and their representative organisations, are best placed to make and influence the decisions that affect their lives. This represents a commitment to the meaningful, independent, and fully financed engagement of OPDs in the development process."

This grant allows IDA to further its focus on the fact that inclusion cannot happen if persons with disabilities and their organisations are not empowered to participate. The only successful way to ensure that persons with disabilities and their representative organisations are recognised as agents of change is by including their voices on all matters and aspects of life.

*About the International Disability Alliance (IDA)*
IDA, established in 1999, is a network of eight global and six regional organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs). IDA members, and their members, represent over 1100 OPDs from across 182 countries and the estimated one billion persons with disabilities worldwide. The 14 members of IDA are: the African Disability Forum (ADF); the ASEAN Disability Forum (AsDF); the Arab Organization of Persons with Disabilities (AOPD); Down Syndrome International (DSI); the European Disability Forum (EDF); Inclusion International (II); the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People (IFHOH); the International Federation of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (IFSBH); the Latin American Network of Non-Governmental Organizations of Persons with Disabilities and their Families (RIADIS); the Pacific Disability Forum (PDF); the World Blind Union (WBU); the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD); the World Federation of the Deafblind (WFDB); and the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP). For more information please visit http://www.internationaldisabilityalliance.org/

*About Sightsavers*
Sightsavers is an international organisation that works in more than 30 low- and middle-income countries to end avoidable blindness, treat and eliminate neglected tropical diseases, and promote equality of opportunity for people with disabilities. Sightsavers vision is of a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes and where people with disabilities can participate equally in society. It is a registered UK charity (Registered charity numbers 207544 and SC038110).

Globally 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment and of these, at least 1 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness that could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed. This burden weighs more heavily on poorer countries, and on marginalised communities. And projections show that global demand for eye care is set to surge in the coming years.

In the seven decades since its foundation, Sightsavers has:

• Supported more than 1.2 BILLION treatments for neglected tropical diseases
• Carried out more than 7.7 million cataract operations to restore sight
• Carried out more than 196 million eye examinations
• Dispensed more than 4.6 million glasses

Sightsavers holds Independent Research Organisation (IRO) status, making them one of the only international non-governmental organisations to hold this status in the UK. Sightsavers conducts high quality research to address global gaps in knowledge and put research findings into practice by feeding them back into the design of programmes.

For more information, please visit http://www.sightsavers.org

Media Contact

Aliyah Esmail, International Disability Alliance, +41 (0) 79 848 7999, [email protected]

Tessa Pope, Sightsavers, +44 (0)14 44 446 637, [email protected]

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SOURCE International Disability Alliance