Cataract surgery can restore vision in people who have lost it. But only half of the people around the world who need cataract surgery have access to it. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)
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Over 94 million people around the world currently have cataracts, according to the World Health Organization. But for about half of those who need cataract surgery to stave off blindness, it has been unclear where they are going to get such a sight-saving procedure, according to a study recently published in the Lancet Global Health. Fortunately, efforts like Bloomberg Philanthropies’ global Vision Initiative have been eying this big, big problem. And since its inception in May 2025 the Vision Initiative has already helped over 59,100 people in different countries see their way to surgery.
A cataract is when the lens in each of your eyes goes from clear to cloudy with a good chance of eventually not being able to see meatballs or anything else for that matter. That lens sits behind your iris, you know that colored part of each of your eyes. When light goes into either of your eyes, it passes through the lens, which then is supposed focuses the light so that it projects properly onto your retina that’s located at the back of your eye.
Here’s a look at what’s inside your eye, beyond what you might see over a candlelight dinner:
Human eye anatomy (Illustration: Getty)
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Your retina is comprised of photoreceptors that can then detect the light to send the proper signals to your brain. That, folks, is how you can clearly see things—even things you want to unsee, like when someone sends a photo of hot dogs with spaghetti cooked through them.
Things start to change in your 40s to 50s, though. The proteins in your lens begin to break down and clump together with age and form cataracts. At first this is not noticeable—you can still clearly see those hot dogs. But over time, the cataracts grow, making the lens stiffer, thicker and cloudier in the process.
The cataract can end up blocking and scattering light that tries to get through the lens. Cataracts can grow at different rates in each of your lens, impairing your eyesight more and more over time. When left unhandled, cataracts can eventually cause blindness. And you can clearly see why this is a big problem.
But fortunately this vision impairment is very treatable by surgery. An ophthalmologic surgeon can make a small incision in your eye under local anesthesia, remove the clouded lens and replace with an artificial intraocular lens made out of either plastic or silicone. Life in plastic can be fantastic as most people report better vision within just a few days. The surgery itself takes only about 15 minutes to complete and with full healing occurring within about four to six weeks.
Cataract surgery has become a relatively common procedure but—and this is a big but, one cannot lie—not common enough as many locations around the world do not have ready access to such physicians. For the Lancet Global Health study, the Effective Cataract Surgical Coverage study group analyzed 233 datasets that contained results from various surveys conducted from 2003 through 2024 in 68 different countries. From this data, they tried to estimate what percentage of people who needed cataract surgery could actually access such surgery. This estimated coverage percentage ranged from a really low low of 2.1 in Burundi in 2024 up to 77.7 in Qatar in 2023. The estimate for around the world was 48·2 percent in 2025. Things are looking up for these numbers, though. The study did forecast this latter number to increase from 43.9 percent in 2020 to 52.3 percent in 2030.
The up and up is due in large part to efforts to get more and more people connected with cataract surgery. I first covered the Bloomberg Philanthropies Vision Initiative last year in Forbes after billionaire philanthropist Mike Bloomberg, who is the founder of both Bloomberg, LLC, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, announced a $75 million investment into the new initiative. You could say that this initiative has had quite a vision, aiming to provide 11 million vision screenings, distribute seven million pairs of eyeglasses and restoring sight for 250,000 people through cataract surgeries by the year 2027. This has included pairing up with Warby Parker’s Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program to provide even more eyeglasses to different parts of the world and Warby Parker’s Pupils Project to offer free eye exams and eyeglasses to more students across the U.S.
The initiative has already been quite a spectacle. Over 706,600 spectacles to be more exact. That’s how many pairs of eyeglasses that have been distributed via the Vision Initiative to students and workers in different industries across six different countries, according to the recently-released Bloomberg Philanthropies annual report. This report also cut to the chase about which countries have seen the more than 59,100 eyesight-restoring cataract surgeries that have been facilitated: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria.
You can clearly see how people regaining better vision can be not only life-changing but also society-changing in so many ways. Kids can learn more. Adults can be more productive. Accidents can be prevented. Thus, everyone eventually will benefit. But impaired vision has long been an overlooked problem around the world.
Folks like Bloomberg, who also has been the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries since 2016, and Neil Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker, have been trying to change that. You could say that getting more people access to eye exams, eyeglasses and cataract surgery is literally a visionary effort. And so far, things are looking quite good.
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