Impact Stories

“As the world faces cascading and interlinked global crises and conflicts, the aspirations set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are in jeopardy,” says António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. The remarks were made in the recent Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 outlining the status of progress towards the state of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As vision advocates we know that good vision affects and is tied to many of the SDGs including No Poverty (SDG 1), Good Health and Well-Being (SDG 3), Quality Education (SDG 4) and several more. It’s clear that if we tackle the issue of vision we can improve these other pressing societal issues. As the report mentions: “Just as the impact of crises is compounded when they are linked, so are the solutions.”

In a recent discussion at the recent Devex@UNGA event Anurag Hans, Head of Mission at EssilorLuxottica and OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation’s President joined Tia Hodges, VP Corporate Giving and Employee Volunteerism at MetLife and President at MetLife Foundation to address the need for collaboration to multiply impact. They spoke of their joint private sector/private sector efforts to create sustainable livelihoods and improve access to vision care among rural communities in Bangladesh.

Key takeaways from the discussion include the following:

• We must realize we live in a world where not everyone has access to what they need - in this case a pair of glasses or a sustainable livelihood.
• Impact can be far greater when you have multiple purpose-focused organizations to support communities.
• Collaboration brings unique abilities and leadership to lean into an issue. These are all cross-cutting issues. So many SDGs target the same vulnerable communities.
• As organizations we need to break away from owning impact areas. Development is an inclusive agenda. This helps us more broadly optimize investments.
• We all want to make a difference. It’s hard to do that alone. Sharing the work is tremendously important

You can gain more insight on this topic by watching the complete conversation below.