Briefing: Seeing is Believing’s 2020 Commitment
Purpose: The purpose of this briefing is to provide information on the launch of the new Seeing is Believing commitment and give guidance as to how our NGO partners can support.
Seeing is Believing 2020 Commitment
Standard Chartered is expanding its commitment to Seeing is Believing to 2020. The key pillars of the commitment are as follows:
- Building on the USD 37million raised since 2003, Seeing is Believing commits to raising a further USD 63million to raise a total of USD 100million by 2020 for projects to tackle avoidable blindness.
- Half the money will be raised by Bank staff through fundraising initiatives, through the Bank’s networks with clients, suppliers and other stakeholders and the public. The other half will be provided directly from the Bank’s community investment budget and will take the form of matching funds for fund raising.
- Projects will be set up across Africa, Asia, Middle East, and South America in areas of high need in countries where the Bank has presence.
- Projects will aim to make a lasting impact in the global campaign to eliminate avoidable blindness.
Launch
The new commitment will be officially announced to the public on 21st September at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. This will build on a previous commitment made in 2008 to raise USD 20 million by 2012 to help 20 million people across impoverished urban areas. The Bank will release a global media press release at this time to announce the commitment.
World Sight Day, October 13th 2011, will be a key date for the Bank in individual markets. Traditionally, the Bank across its markets is very active in raising funds for Seeing is Believing and organising activities to celebrate World Sight Day. This will also provide an opportunity to put out more country-specific messaging about Seeing is Believing, its achievements and its commitment to the future.
Last Hour campaign, December, will round off the year’s Seeing is Believing activities. Staff will be encouraged to donate their last hour’s salary to Seeing is Believing for it to be matched by the Bank.
Key Messages
Key themes for us are as follows:
- the importance of making a long-term commitment and providing a stable source of funding to NGOs to facilitate long-term planning;
- the importance of Seeing is Believing as a platform for engaging staff and the key role that staff have in driving Seeing is Believing forward, and;
- the importance of partnership in driving VISION2020.
Key messages for the launch are provided in the appendix to this document. The Bank is also being supplied with new visuals to advertise the commitment.
Samples of visuals
What you, our NGO partners, can do to support
In order to meet our USD 100m target, we will need to raise an additional USD 63 million by 2020. This translates to USD 7million over 9 years of which half will be provided from staff fundraising and half from Bank matching funds. Maintaining this level of fund raising over nine years will be a key challenge for our staff. The launch of the new commitment will be a key opportunity for us to build fund raising momentum and regenerate enthusiasm for the programme. You, our partner NGOs, play a key role in this.
The guidance below applies especially to NGOs that have current projects funded through Seeing is Believing:
- Keep the Bank informed of your own communications plans for World Sight Day and any key events being planned, both globally and at an individual country level.
- Keep the Bank up to date on progress being made as part of your project. For example, you may be asked to participate in a town hall and give a talk to staff on the work that is being done through the Seeing is Believing project and its achievements.
- Be creative about ways that you can show the impact that Seeing is Believing funding is having. This is a key motivation for staff. There are some great examples of projects capturing video footage from projects to bring it home to staff how money is being used. Project visits are another option.
- Consider how staff can be involved in the project. Well designed employee volunteering can add value to the project and to your work, there are numerous examples of good practice from across the Seeing is Believing network. For example, in Tanzania, local Bank staff are sharing good practice in customer service and helping CCBRT think more about the patient experience. In Indonesia, HKI have trained Bank staff to help out in school screening sessions which has helped shorten the amount of time it takes to carry out a school screening. Do not feel you have to limit employee volunteering to the projects either. Our employees have expertise across finance, human resources, technology, public relations and many other areas. These skills can be can put to use in country offices and regional offices as well as on the ground in projects.
Thank you
Thank you for your support and partnership. We see Seeing is Believing as more than just a donation programme. We see it as a partnership with our NGO partners which is embedded in the Bank’s culture and an important element in our staff’s experience of working in the Bank. Through your delivery of quality projects and by showing the impact of those projects, you help ensure that Seeing is Believing remains a live and relevant initiative for staff through to 2020 and you help build the fundraising momentum among our staff that will be crucial to meeting Seeing is Believing’s USD 100 million target.
Appendix 1: Seeing is Believing media messages
Key messages- There are 39 million blind people in the world and without effective intervention the number of blind people worldwide is projected to increase to 76 million by 2020 (VISION 2020). 80 per cent of blindness can be avoided through early treatment or surgery.
- It is estimated that blindness leads to a US$ 200 billion loss in economic productivity, as many blind and visually impaired people lack the opportunity to work or support their families (International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness).
- 90% of avoidable blindness occurs in the developing world, affecting economic productivity in countries where we operate.
- Standard Chartered will extend its commitment to Seeing is Believing, aiming to raise a further US$ 63 million by 2020. The Bank will have raised a total of US$ 100 million since the programme launched in 2003.
- 60% of children die within one year of going blind. Working with the international eye care community, we will bring a greater focus on childhood blindness, ensuring more children live fulfilling lives.
Key themes/stories:
Long -term commitment
- Through long-term commitments, corporations and financial institutions enable NGOs to set far reaching plans, allowing them the time needed to get to the crux of social or environment issues, to build trust within the communities affected and make a sustainable impact.
- Seeing is Believing has enabled NGOs to make great strides in tackling avoidable blindness e.g.We have reached 23 million people, helped fund 2.78 million sight-saving cataract operations and facilitated the distribution of medicine to treat Vitamin A deficiency and river blindness for 3.37 million people.
- Through the long-term funding and support, NGOs have been able and will continue to build scalable projects with far reaching goals, which enable them to:
Understand the existing eye-care need and develop appropriate health care programmes E.g. NGOs worked with the governments to build the capacity for trained professionals where they were lacking. In KwaZulu-Natal, a province in South Africa, more than 900 government nurses have been trained on eye-care and 30 optometrists are now employed by the province, an increase from 14. More than 125 clinics now provide optometry services, formerly there were just 49. In Kwara State, Nigeria 21 ophthalmic nurses and 6 ophthalmologists have been trained, leading to an increase in cataract surgery from less than 120 each year to more than 2,600 annually.
Influence government to prioritise blindness and integrate eye-care into their health care programmes
E.g. In Sierra Leone, NGOs influenced government to respond Vitamin A deficiency. The country now administers Vitamin A supplements among other immunizations to children during its annual child care week.
In countries like Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan and Zambia; partners have worked with governments to train community health staff on primary eye care. Now more people receive eye care locally and are able to be referred to secondary and tertiary eye units where needed.
In Pakistan, NGOs will work with the government over the next few years to integrate eye care into health screening at schools. This will ensure that children that need glasses and those with blinding ocular conditions or severe visual impairment or basic vision problems are identified and treated before a child’s education is affected. The project aims to develop a standard approach for school eye screening in Pakistan. While this was only established six months ago, Seeing is Believing has already successfully initiated similar school screenings in China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
Enhance health-care systems so that eye-care and blindness prevention can become sustainable in the long-term E.g. .NGOs have been working with neonatal staff in Lima, Peru to better understand the issues of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), an eye disease which can lead to blindness in premature babies, and how to prevent and treat it.
In China and Indonesia, NGOs have forged relationships with general practitioners and medical experts to learn more about Diabetic Retinopathy, damaging of the retina as a result of diabetes, and how to prevent and treat it.
Employee engagement on brand promise Here for good
- Avoidable blindness was an issue initially championed by Standard Chartered employees and their momentum for supporting the cause has continually increased over the years. Our employees have largely perpetuated the success and support of the programme and we want to champion their commitment and demonstration of our brand promise Here for good.
Our employees are extremely supportive of Seeing is Believing and have created an unrivalled momentum for fundraising at the Bank
Employees have gone to great measures to raise money for SIB, e.g. an employee from our London office cycled from the City to Istanbul to raise money for Seeing is Believing, four employees cycled the Tour de France stage 19, a challenging portion of the race with high altitudes climbing over 3000m in the French Alps. They were among 6,400 cyclists to finish the race and raised almost US$ 12,000.
We offer up to 3 days employee volunteering each year and many employees choose to volunteer for Seeing is Believing projects
E.g. In places like Nepal and Sierra Leone, employees played an important role in advocating Vitamin A and its role in the elimination of blindness in small children. Teams of employees have personally taken the time to visit key slums to ensure that all children and babies received vitamin A supplements. This not only provides the NGOs with needed resource, but allows our employees to become more engaged in the issues impacting their communities.
We want to build on the success of VISION 2020
- Standard Chartered wants to support the continued success of VISION2020, the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness led by the World Health Organization and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
- Despite an aging global population, visual impairment worldwide has decreased in the last 20 years. This is largely due to public health action to tackle infectious diseases that lead to blindness.
- Since the establishment of VISION 2020,the following progress has been made:
The numbers of cataract surgeries carried out in India has increased five-fold over the past 25 years and the lessons learned are having an major positive impact in other countries;
Blindness due to trachoma and onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, has greatly reduced and the possibility of the elimination of these two diseases by 2020 is within reach;
Childhood blindness is decreasing due to Vitamin A supplementation, measles immunization and the focus on blinding conditions such as retinopathy of prematurity;
Half of the world’s visual impairment is due to uncorrected refractive error – significant progress has been made in bringing refraction and eye glass manufacturing to the poorest communities;
104 countries have developed a national plan to eliminate avoidable ;
In 2009, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted an Action Plan for the Prevention of Avoidable Blindness and Visual Impairment. This provides for the implementation of two WHA resolutions on prevention of blindness adopted in 2003 and 2006;
VISION 2020 has established tried and tested approaches to preventing avoidable blindness, which not only strengthens health care but are highly cost effective.
Useful background:
- A collaboration between the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and leading international eye-care NGOs, Seeing is Believing is the Bank’s global initiative to tackle avoidable blindness and visual impairment.
- Standard Chartered supports VISION 2020, theglobal initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).
- Through its latest commitment, the Bank aims to make a lasting impact by building sustainable eye-care programmes in developing countries where it operates.
- Through the funding, the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and leading international eye-care NGOs will deliver 35 sustainable eye-care projects, including:
At least 30 smaller eye-care projects in over 20 countries.
- By ‘sustainable’, the programmes will be:
Adequately staffed and equipped;
Fully comprehensive projects, considerate of human resource development; infrastructure support, disease control and local population needs;
Financially sustainable long after the Bank’s funding ends.
- Since 2003, US$ 37 million has been raised for eye-care initiatives impacting more than 25 million people, half of which has been donated by Standard Chartered through dollar-for-dollar matching. The funding has covered:
Training for over 58,000 health care workers;
3.4 million eye-care screenings;
The distribution of over 126,000 pairs of glasses.
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