Advancing healthy communities in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe: final evaluation

The Advancing Healthy Communities (AHC) programme aimed to develop a mid-level eye care workforce to increase access to eye health services and to reduce the cataract surgical backlog in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The programme began with very mixed results and slow performance, but over its final two years achieved the majority of its goals. The project targeted the mid-level of the health system as the key to increasing the accessibility of eye health to rural communities and reducing the incidence of blindness in the region.

The programme also had a positive effect on the technical capacity of training institutions, as all plan to continue to offer this training in future. Publication date: June 2015