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Annual report 2020 Sight vers

In Cameroon, Sightsavers programme officer Ndelle Ngabe Makoge helps a student fill in his details before he is given deworming medication.

On the cover

Ngo, a 10-year-old student from western Cameroon, received deworming medication as part of a Sightsavers programme.

www.sightsavers.org

What’s inside?

04

The context

06

Message from our Chair

08 FCDO statement

09

Strategy, objectives and activities

12

Our work

18

2020 in review: challenges amid a global pandemic

32

Achievements in 2020

33

SIM card: measuring our progress

35 Output statistics

40 Progress towards planned objectives

60

Risks and challenges

68

Our plans for 2021

70

Structure, governance and accountability

78

Review of financial outcome 2020

86 Key people and suppliers

89

Independent auditors’ report

94

Consolidated financial statements

Annual report 2020

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The context

About 15% of the world’s population has some form of disability

Worldwide, at least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment, and at least 1 billion people have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or addressed.
65 million people are needlessly blind or visually impaired because of cataracts.
More than 800 million people with refractive error lack access to glasses.
The prevalence of blindness in many low and middle income countries is more than eight times higher than in all high-income countries.
More than a billion people, about 15 per cent of the world’s population, have some form of disability.
Rates of disability are increasing because of the ageing population and a rise in chronic health conditions, among other causes. Without action, the number of people who are blind could rise to 115 million by 2050.

We will review these figures in 2021 using updates from the Lancet Commission and Vision Loss Expert Group, which feeds into the Vision Atlas produced by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB).

In many low-income countries, the prevalence of blindness is eight times higher than in high-income countries

Without action, the number of people who are blind could rise to 115 million by 2050

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Our vision

65 million people are needlessly blind or visually impaired because of cataracts

We want a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes and where people with visual impairments and other disabilities participate equally in society.

Our mission

We work with partners in low and middle income countries to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities.

Our objects

More than 800 million people with refractive error lack access to glasses

To advance health, with emphasis on taking or promoting measures to prevent and/or cure blindness.

To advance the education of people with disabilities, with emphasis on blind people.

To prevent or relieve poverty among people with disabilities, with emphasis on blind people.

© Sightsavers/John Healey

At least 1 billion people have a vision impairment that could have been either prevented or addressed

Sources

World Health Organization, World Report on Vision, October 2019. www.who.int/publications/i/item/ 9789241516570

Bourne RRA, Flaxman SR, Braithwaite T et al; Vision Loss Expert Group. Magnitude, temporal trends, and projections of the global prevalence of blindness and distance and near vision impairment, August 2017. www.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28779882

World Health Organization, Disability and Health fact sheet, January 2018. www.who.int/ mediacentre/factsheets/fs352/en/

Annual report 2020

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Message from our Chair

As with every organisation across the globe, Sightsavers’ activities and performance in 2020 were dominated by the impact of COVID-19.

When I wrote this introduction last year, the pandemic had just hit and people were working from home for the first time. No one knew then how long the situation would continue or how serious the impact would be – as we all know only too well the pandemic is continuing to wreak havoc, especially in Asia where, as I write in early June, our programmes are mostly paused.

Looking back, Sightsavers proved to be exceptionally resilient throughout 2020. As the virus spread, many of our programmes had to be paused as countries focused on COVID-19. We immediately created rigorous procedures to ensure our programmes could restart safely, and by the fourth quarter most were up and running again, albeit at lower levels of activity. These procedures were developed with the World Health Organization and were then used by other organisations in our field. Momentum continued to build through the first part of 2021 and more activities were able to take place, although the recent wave in Asia has meant many programmes there recently stalled – hopefully not for too long.

The vaccine has made all the difference to people in the UK and Europe, and will hopefully be the key to resolving the Asian situation. Right now, cases in most African countries are low, and we hope this continues. We do not want to see a new variant affecting the continent, because it is clear that vaccine availability in Africa will lag well behind the rest of the world.

Despite the pandemic, we were still able to deliver treatments, screenings and operations in 2020, albeit at a lower level than we had planned, or than we were able to deliver in 2019. We were able to adapt our disability programmes so that many activities, such as training and education, were conducted online. Our Inclusion Works programme met its targets and has been well received by a number of companies looking to become more disability confident.

Our organisational processes proved robust to remote working and we were able to maintain our operations without any significant hitches. There were even some benefits: the increased use of video conferencing technology meant our staff across countries connected far more with one another, and the quality of our internal communications took a major leap, while our travel costs and environmental impact were significantly reduced.

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We had been concerned about what the pandemic would do to our income. In fact, overall income (apart from gifts in kind, which were related to programme activity) increased in 2020 thanks to generosity from supporters across all the countries where we fundraise. The income from our restricted contracts fell, but this was because we recognise certain income when we spend it, and activity levels were suppressed.

In total our 2020 income, excluding gifts in kind, was £106 million, and our general funds reserves increased to £21 million. This is more than our normal policy level would require, but the trustees felt this was understandable given the unprecedented times.

Our increased donor and funding support is continuing in 2021, apart from one very disappointing exception: the UK government, which has slashed its aid spending. The drop from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5% suggests cuts of about 30%, yet the impact on funding to organisations such as Sightsavers is far greater. The government has prioritised funding to multilateral organisations and to COVID-19 work, therefore our funding has been decimated. In April the UK government announced that despite exemplary performance, they intended to exit from our neglected tropical disease programmes completely and rapidly. We are negotiating the

terms of that exit and looking for donors who could step in. We have been told that our Aid Match contracts (we have three in eye health) will not be affected and have been informed of an expected funding cut of around 25% on our principal disability contract.

This is exceptionally disappointing, particularly with the UK government claiming to prioritise global health, and our NTD work having been able to support COVID-19 activities (as can be seen in this report). If we cannot find other donors, the elimination of NTDs will be delayed and many treatments and operations will not happen. Financially, this is a blow, but with a plethora of other donors and strong reserves, Sightsavers is well placed to move forward. The critical impact is on the people we will not be able to support.

Finally, I’d like to thank all the trustees, staff and partners for their hard work and dedication over the past year, which has tested us all more than ever, both personally and professionally. Sightsavers’ work in health and inclusion will be vital in the wake of this pandemic, which has shown how health systems in many countries are very weak, and how people with disabilities are still seen as an afterthought when the chips are down.

Sir Clive Jones Chair

Annual report 2020

Statement on FCDO aid cuts

In April 2021, the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) instructed us to pause all work on the Ascend contract for neglected tropical diseases pending a decision on the impact of the aid cuts. Only work that had been funded under budgets from the previous year was able to continue. We were advised in May that a decision had been made to exit the contract completely. The Ascend contract should have run to March 2022 and earlier this year we had been in discussions with FCDO about extending it for a further 18 months. It had been scoring at the ‘exceeding expectations’ level.

On 10 June 2021, FCDO issued a ‘no fault’ termination notice saying the contract would run until 1 November, but that all activities need to be complete by the end of August. The expected budget for the year from April for the third year had been around £38 million, much of which would have been on-granted to partners.

FCDO has agreed a set of ‘imminent activities’ that it is willing to fund until the end of August, which is less than that in the original work plan. These primarily consist of mass drug administration activities that were originally scheduled to start from April, a number of surgeries where patients had already had appointments booked, and a few surveys.

We are in the process of agreeing the details of an exit plan, which should include our exit costs and issues around assets and intellectual property.

We are in discussions with a number of other potential donors who have shown an interest in funding aspects of the

programme. We will not know whether we have been successful in this regard until after this report has been published.

The impact of the loss of this contract, especially if no alternative funding can be found, will be felt most in the communities where NTDs are still endemic, and there is a risk of diseases that were on the road to elimination having a resurgence. There is also a risk that drugs donated by pharmaceutical companies will expire and will need to be incinerated, as there will not be the funds to distribute them.

Obviously without replacement funding there will be an impact on our income (in both cash terms and income in respect of donated drugs), but there will also be a reduction in expenditure as activity ceases. There would be a number of job losses in both the UK and West Africa, but until we know about alternative funding and likely restructures, the number is unclear. There is no impact on Sightsavers’ status in terms of going concern.

There has been considerable coverage of the issue in the press, including concern expressed by pharmaceutical companies and the World Health Organization.

On our disability contracts, we have been told our Disability Inclusive Development budget will be cut by around 25%, which means the programme will still grow year on year. In comparison with other cuts we hear about in the news, this is a great relief. We are still in discussions around the smaller Inclusion Works programme.

Our UK Aid match eye health programmes are not affected by the cuts.

www.sightsavers.org

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Strategy, objectives and activities

Sightsavers’ strategy review process is almost complete. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to revise our thematic strategies on eye health, uncorrected refractive error, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), social inclusion and education. We also wrote an overarching programme strategy.

During the year, we looked in more depth at our approach to the environment, and to equity, diversity and inclusion, both within our programmes and within the organisation. A new SIM card is being developed to update organisational-level objectives, including fresh indicators, and we are preparing a roadmap for systems updates.

Our revised strategies built on last year’s programme achievement audits: they were developed in consultation with our staff, and were reviewed at the end of April 2021 at our trustees’ meeting. We hope to launch the full new strategy later in 2021.

Sightsavers has a common programmatic approach, with common programme principles. The thematic strategies combine to create one coherent programme of work, creating useful learning and interconnected interventions. All strategies consider our operating environment, especially relating to climate change and fragile environments.

In 2020, we revised our strategies for each of Sightsavers’ thematic areas.

Annual report 2020

In Mali, teacher Chaka uses 3D tools to help 15-year-old Alfousseini, who is blind, learn about geometry. The initiative is part of Sightsavers’ inclusive education work in the region.

The current strategy is shown in our scorecard, or Strategy Implementation and Monitoring (SIM) card: see page 11. Each element has detailed sub-strategies and indicators that measure performance.

There are four ultimate aims shown at the top of the SIM card, which link directly to our objects on health, education and inclusion. The first two are about governments ensuring eye health and education services (the ‘supply side’) are available to all. The third is about securing equality for people with visual impairments, and governments implementing the agreed conventions.

The fourth is the ‘demand side’, covering inclusion and health objectives, and is about people with disabilities being able to seek healthcare.

We then take these aims and look at what we want to achieve for our beneficiaries over the strategic period. At present we undertake demonstration programmes in eye health, education and social inclusion. We have a separate objective to eliminate neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), which is tied to our object on advancing health. Each of the objectives has ‘lead’ and ‘lag’ indicators, with data collected at least once a year (sometimes six-monthly).

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Ultimate aims Governments ensure quality eye care is universally available as an inte�ral part of wider health systems. Governments ensure all children with disabilities receive a quality education within the wider education system. People with visual impairments are equal members of society and �overnments implement obli�ations under international conventions for people with disabilities. People with disabilities actively seek eye care services. 1 3 4 Demonstrate scalable, cost-effective approaches to eye care that stren�then health systems. Demonstrate scalable, cost-effective approaches to developin� inclusive education for children with disabilities in their local context. Demonstrate effective approaches that have a positive impact on the inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities. 2 Deliver inte�rated ne�lected tropical disease pro�rammes in support of a�reed �lobal tar�ets. Beneficiaries What must we achieve for our beneficiaries?	Resources 5 7 8 6 9 11 13 14 12 10 Establish stron� strate�ic networks and alliances. Develop effective, joined-up advocacy. Ensure hi�h-quality pro�rammes. Establish adequate specialist and technical expertise. Generate and disseminate sound research and evidence. Establish effective information sharin� systems. Develop effective pro�ramme implementation partnerships. Develop or�anisational capabilities. Capacities What do we need to excel at to deliver for our beneficiaries? Learnin� and �rowth Where do we need to invest in order to excel?	How do we ensure Grow our income. Use resources strate�ically	we are resourced and efficiently.	adequately?

Annual report 2020

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Our work

Eye health

We believe affordable health care should be available to everyone. As defined in the World Health Organization health systems handbook*, we help to improve local health systems by:

improving the delivery of eye health services.
training health workers.
distributing medication.
providing health financing.
improving health information systems, governance and leadership.

To achieve this, we work alongside organisations such as WHO’s Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO), the Africa Health Organisation, the West Africa College of Surgeons and the College of Ophthalmology of East Africa. We also promote the inclusion of universal eye health in national health policies.

In the countries where we work, we partner with ministries of health to develop and run district eye care programmes. In some of our larger programmes, we work with international non-governmental organisations such as the Fred Hollows Foundation,

Helen Keller International and Orbis. We also work with non-governmental organisation hospitals, particularly in South Asia.

Our district eye care programmes continue to show how we can improve eye health coverage so it is gender-inclusive, disabilityinclusive and sustainable.

A patient has her eyes checked at Korhogo hospital in Côte d’Ivoire.

www.who.int/healthinfo/systems/WHO_ MBHSS_2010_full_web.pdf

www.sightsavers.org

Education

We believe good-quality education should be available to all children, irrespective of gender, disability, learning requirements, socio-economic background, geographical location, ethnicity, and any other distinguishing characteristics. In each of the countries where we work, we aim to:

• improve education systems at national, district and school levels to promote and provide inclusive education.

• ensure community members, including people with disabilities, are actively involved in inclusive education programmes.

• promote innovative teaching and learning approaches that are contextually appropriate and focused on the students themselves.

• ensure education plans and policies are disability inclusive and implemented effectively.

We work with ministries of education and other ministries, as well as organisations of people with disabilities, alliances and coalitions, universities, and community groups.

In Cameroon, Sightsavers distributes deworming medication in schools so students are protected against disease.

Social inclusion

Sightsavers’ social inclusion strategy is aligned to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We focus on economic empowerment and political participation, while gender and advocacy are also a key part of all our programmes.

Our social inclusion theory of change recognises that change is a complex issue. We focus on three critical related paths:

• Human rights policies and laws must be implemented by national governments. This requires legislative and governmental accountability, effective legal mechanisms and engagement of local citizens.

People with disabilities must have equal opportunities. This means being able to access services such as education, health and legal protection.

• Stigma and discrimination must be addressed. These issues are often deep-rooted causes of marginalisation. While this can be challenging to manage, encouraging people to accept diversity is crucial to ensure lasting social change.

To fulfil our social inclusion goals, we work closely with organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) in the countries where we work.

We have also developed strong partnerships with a number of international organisations focused on disability, including the International Disability Alliance (IDA), Action on Disability and Development (ADD International) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Annual report 2020

Jeniffer, from Kenya, took part in our Inclusive Futures initiative, which supports people with disabilities to help them find work. She now grows crops to sell to a local brewery.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)

While our overriding goal is to eliminate neglected tropical diseases, we’re also committed to ensuring that our NTD work helps to improve local health systems and encourages progress towards universal health coverage, in line with the new World Health Organization Roadmap on NTDs.

In particular, we will:

address gaps and weaknesses in health systems to enable equitable patient care and effective surveillance.
encourage opportunities for evidencebased decision-making, by supporting data standardisation and data ownership.
support universal health coverage by ensuring equitable access to NTD and inclusion services.

We have identified six cross-cutting NTD principles, which underpin all our work:

Integration
Innovation and learning
Research and evidence uptake
Advocacy
Equity
Environmental responsibility

Much of our NTD work is undertaken in consortia, funded by donors such as large foundations and by governments such as the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. We take great care to cooperate with other NTD programmes and their donors to avoid duplication, share learning and ensure we can consistently support the governments of endemic countries, who own these programmes.

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Sightsavers’ inclusive education project in Mali ensures that students such as Aminata, who has visual impairments, are able to go to school.

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Where we work

Where we have programmes Regional and support offices

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Central Africa

Cameroon Chad Democratic Republic of Congo Republic of Congo

Eastern Africa

Egypt Ethiopia Kenya Malawi Mozambique South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe

Western Africa

30+ countries where we work 9 regional and support offices

Benin Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Senegal Sierra Leone The Gambia Togo

Asia

Bangladesh India Jordan Nepal Pakistan Yemen

Annual report 2020

2020 in review: Challenges and changes amid a global pandemic

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The COVID-19 pandemic dominated nearly all of 2020. Sightsavers had to adapt to the challenge of pausing and repurposing our programmes, while trying to support our staff around the world against a backdrop of constantly changing restrictions and crisis measures.

Our previous experience in dealing with the Ebola health crisis meant we knew how to adjust programmes during a health emergency, albeit on a smaller scale. The pandemic led to significant change for us internally – some difficult, but some positive – and enabled us to evolve into a stronger, better connected and more inclusive organisation. We plan to incorporate what we’ve learned into Sightsavers’ ongoing development and, although the long-term impact of the pandemic is still largely unknown, we are proud of how we met the challenges and changes of 2020.

Image: In Atacora in northern Benin, children are given masks and have their temperature taken before being screened for river blindness.

Annual report 2020

Spotlight on… Our operational response to COVID-19

Image: A health worker wears a mask while gathering samples to check for neglected tropical diseases in Benin.

The pandemic took the world by surprise. Very early on and very rapidly, most of our programmes were hit by response measures put in place to control the spread of the virus within communities. We had to respond flexibly and innovatively, and find ways to support the faster, more agile decision-making needed in a global health crisis.

We quickly tried to identify what needed to be done differently to maintain the positive impact of our programmes during the pandemic and beyond. This involved adapting our oversight processes, and finding remote ways of tracking and reporting our key activities.

Within a couple of weeks of entering lockdown, most of our programme work was paused, and monitoring processes for core and NTD programmes were adapted across all our countries. Within core programmes, this involved shifting from quarterly to fortnightly oversight. We created interactive, visual dashboards for reporting to management and donors. This supported an organisational push for a creative response to the pandemic.

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Spotlight on… Restarting our programmes safely

Image: Nine-year-old Maïchata, who has visual impairments, is being supported at school in Mali as part of Sightsavers’ inclusive education programme.

As the pandemic began to ease, we knew it was vital to find ways to resume our work so we could continue to help those who needed it, build on the gains we’d made and support governments with their COVID-19 response.

We followed a twin-track approach to ensure we could restart our programmes as safely and quickly as possible. In our NTD projects we developed and implemented a new risk assessment and mitigation action tool, known as RAMA, while for other programmes we provided clear risk management guidelines for country directors and programme partners. This enabled staff to assess whether restarting our work was appropriate and in line with local legislation and regulations.

Providing staff with structured tools to make local decisions was key to helping us get our programmes up and running so quickly in the latter part of 2020.

Annual report 2020

Spotlight on… Adapting our work

Neglected tropical diseases

The pandemic forced us to pause many of our NTD activities in Africa in April 2020. Yet stopping our drug distribution campaigns could have risked the progress made in the fight against these diseases. To avoid this, we collaborated with donors and partners to adapt World Health Organization guidelines to ensure our work in the field could continue where it was safe to do so. The new RAMA risk assessment tool enabled us to assess whether work could resume without undue risk of spreading COVID-19, and what changes would need to be made to do so.

In response to the pandemic, UK aid repurposed £6.1 million of its flagship programme, Ascend West and Central Africa, to support national COVID-19 prevention. As a result, we worked with our partners, M&C Saatchi World Services and their network across Africa to devise behaviour change campaigns that reached more than 131 million people across nine countries. Our campaigns, which were sensitive to national and regional cultures,

encouraged people to wash their hands, practise good hygiene and maintain social distancing. The materials are now available for ministries to re-use, so their impact can continue as many countries in West and Central Africa face further waves of the virus.

In Korhogo in northern Côte d’Ivoire, a patient is given eye ointment after surgery to treat advanced trachoma.

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Disability

Early on in the pandemic, evidence suggested that marginalised groups, including women, children and people with disabilities, were being more severely affected by the pandemic than the wider population. This is likely to remain the case as testing and vaccination programmes are rolled out worldwide.

To maximise the impact of our programmes on these groups, we have improved our data collection and analysis to deepen our understanding of marginalised groups in the countries where we work. This includes strengthening the relevance and quality of the data we collect, improving our methods for delivering and sharing this data so it can be more easily understood and used, and bringing the data to life, with improved focus and formats for presenting our analysis.

This has enabled us to gain better understanding of the people most affected by COVID-19 and other issues within our projects.

Dhaka Eye Hospital in Bangladesh has made its facilities more accessible via the Right to Health project, funded by UK aid.

Eye health

The impact of COVID-19 for people with sight loss in Africa and Asia has been devastating. Not only have they been prevented from spending time with the people closest to them, but in many cases they have also been unable to access life-changing eye care treatment.

It has been essential for us to restart our work quickly and safely, to provide much-needed diagnoses and treatment, and to work flexibly to respond to the crisis and build stronger healthcare for the future. Some limitations to services have been necessary: for short periods we have had to shut down some services, but by working with our partners we have ensured the best possible safety for people and providers while minimising the negative impact on our work.

We have collaborated with ministries of health to train eye health workers about COVID-19 transmission and how to minimise risk when in contact with patients. We also have worked with communications specialists and country teams to develop COVID-19 messages to be displayed at eye clinics. This was particularly important where local public health messaging may not have reached enough people. Some advocacy was also needed in countries where the pandemic response was slow or ignored.

We have provided protective equipment and hygiene kits for workers, and are supporting eye clinics and outreach camps to ensure staff and patients adhere to social distancing and hygiene measures. We have suspended risky procedures and are using alternatives where possible: where it is not, we have suspended non-urgent services such as surveys. We have also ensured proper protocols are in place, such as negative COVID-19 tests on patients before surgical operations.

Annual report 2020

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In Bangladesh, Bishawjit Das from BBC Media Action has trained more than 150 journalists as part of a project to improve how people with disabilities are portrayed in the media.

Influencing

The pandemic has profoundly affected our influencing approach and targets, especially because people with disabilities have experienced some of the worst mortality rates and discrimination. Lockdowns and social distancing mean we have had to adapt our approach to ensure it is appropriate as policies change. In India, we worked with partners to research the impact of COVID-19 on people with disabilities, including a study in Madhya Pradesh and a project focused on women with disabilities. We are now collaborating with UN Women to understand the experiences of women with disabilities across the Asia-Pacific region. Both projects continue to inform our work.

Early in the pandemic, organisations of people with disabilities began making their voices heard in many of our programme countries. In Uganda, the impact of our work became clear when young people with disabilities who had

been part of a previous Sightsavers project became strong advocates for disability rights and were nominated for district COVID-19 response committees. In Bangladesh, we worked with the SDG Disability Alliance to ensure the social protection emergency response trebled its allocation for people with disabilities.

We continue to influence the equitable implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in 2020 we have focused on the need for a sustainable and equitable recovery from COVID-19. We supported people with disabilities to participate in voluntary national reviews in countries including Nigeria, Zambia, India, Bangladesh and Malawi, leading to disability inclusion within the reports. The year’s HighLevel Political Forum was entirely virtual, meaning we could encourage more people to participate and build momentum for the next year.

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Campaigning

When the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on people with disabilities became apparent, our Equal World campaign launched a petition targeting the UN and its member states, calling for the global response to the crisis to be inclusive of people with disabilities. We highlighted the experiences of people from our programme countries, many of whom were facing increased discrimination and violence, as well as extreme difficulties in accessing vital health information and public restriction updates.

The petition gathered more than 25,000 signatures and was handed in via a letter sent to the UN SecretaryGeneral’s office, with copies sent to the permanent missions of UN member countries who have signed or ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It was accompanied by a video featuring Sightsavers staff members from around the world, calling on the UN and member countries to take urgent action to uphold the rights of people with disabilities during the pandemic.

Gulnaz had been living in a rehab centre in Islamabad after being paralysed during the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. When the pandemic struck she was asked to leave, so Sightsavers stepped in to help her find accommodation at a special education centre.

Annual report 2020

Spotlight on… Staying connected with colleagues

The pandemic forced us to change our ways of working as an organisation, which, while challenging, has had some unexpected benefits. Virtual meetings have enabled people to participate more equitably, avoiding an imbalance between participants who are attending in person and those who are dialling in. We aim to conduct future meetings either all virtually, or all in person, and have created a virtual meeting etiquette guide for staff.

We also found that remote working provided opportunities for people who work in a non-traditional way, which has contributed to our efforts to make Sightsavers a disabilityinclusive workplace. We have also learned a lot about making virtual meetings accessible to all, including people with different impairments.

Our mental health first aiders proved invaluable as the effects of the pandemic and the stresses of home working became more apparent. We continue to ensure all staff are aware of the mental health support available to them, and encourage them to use our internal wellbeing hub, which

www.sightsavers.org

Sightsavers CEO Caroline Harper recorded weekly video updates for staff throughout the pandemic.

hosts webinars, wellbeing tips and details of our employee assistance programme. Virtual social gatherings have taken place to enable staff to connect socially: deputy CEO Dom Haslam ran a Desert Island Discs session; Microsoft Teams channels were set up for staff to chat informally; and our 2020 Christmas party involved musical numbers, a quiz and other virtual entertainment.

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In the early months of the pandemic, Sightsavers CEO Caroline Harper began recording a weekly video message for staff, providing updates about Sightsavers and how the organisation is responding to COVID-19. The videos have now been expanded to include interviews with staff from across the organisation. Caroline also hosted a video Q&A session with England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, who is on Sightsavers’ board of trustees, and Professor Margaret Gyapong from the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana.

Annual report 2020

Spotlight on… Fundraising: how courage in a crisis paid off

As the UK and much of the world entered lockdown in March 2020, we had to make difficult decisions about our fundraising. It was clear that certain face-to-face or community activity would need to be put on hold. No one knew how the restrictions would affect the public’s ability and willingness to support charities. But we also knew we would need public support to successfully deliver our projects during the pandemic and beyond.

We were fortunate that our fundraising strategy focuses mainly on ‘remote’ methods – TV advertising, mailings and digital activity. We also had faith in our loyal supporters and their desire to continue supporting us.

In the first week of lockdown we decided to go ahead with our planned spring appeal to existing donors, with the crucial addition of a covering letter to recognise the situation. The appeal raised 24% more income than expected, giving us confidence that we could and should continue to fundraise. We acknowledged the impact COVID-19 was having on our work and our supporters’ lives, and we worked hard to protect our long-term relationships with key supporters: we

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recognised that it may not have been the best time for them to make a donation, but keeping them connected to our work was as vital as ever.

As the pandemic unfolded, we remained focused on datadriven decision-making to make sure we were using the best possible evidence about how we should fundraise. The data showed there was a significant opportunity to make the most of TV advertising: media prices were exceptionally low as many advertisers pulled out, and we were able to reach more people with our adverts. The combination of lower media costs, larger audiences (as people were staying at home) and a strong sense among the public of wanting to do something positive meant we recruited more donors than ever.

We also recognised that the complete collapse of sponsored events such as organised marathons created an opportunity to offer virtual fundraising challenges through our digital channels. We ran several Virtual Walk Challenges, where hundreds of people joined an online community and pledged to each walk 50 miles in a particular month, while raising funds for Sightsavers.

Our courage and belief in our supporters ensured our fundraising was successful this year, despite huge challenges. We ended the year with 15% more regular givers globally, and having beaten our fundraising targets in the majority of markets.

Reading tools for people with low vision at Bangladesh National Society for the Blind Eye Hospital in Dhaka.

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Sightsavers provided
hand washing facilities at
Prosper Kamara school in
western Mali to help stop
the spread of COVID-19.
© Sightsavers/Nicolas Réméné
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Achievements in 2020

The following pages set out what Sightsavers achieved in 2020, looking first at the outcomes measured by our SIM card objectives and indicators (see page 11), then at our output statistics, and finally at what we achieved against the objectives we set ourselves. We had expected many of the output targets to be missed because of the pandemic, but it is gratifying to see just how much was delivered in the face of unprecedented obstacles.

www.sightsavers.org

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Performance notes This indicator only considers countries that have an eye health project and an accurate data collection system. Of the 13 countries with eye health projects, only four had an accurate data collection system (India, Mali, Sierra Leone and Uganda). Of these, Mali and Sierra Leone reported an increased cataract surgical rate (CSR). In some countries with significant eye health programmes (ie Bangladesh, Liberia) it is hard to determine if the CSR has increased, as data is not accurately or systematically collected: not all facilities report data to government, for example. Note also that CSR data is reported mid-year for the preceding year. Progress shown is 2019 vs 2018 and doesn’t provide insight into the impact of COVID-19. This indicator captures results over 10 years (countries inputted results from 2010 to 2020) and has not been affected by COVID-19. This indicator also captures results over 10 years (countries inputted results from 2010 to 2020) and has not been affected by COVID-19. This indicator is slightly below target (47%), but has been increasing steadily since 2017. This is encouraging, given our emphasis on inclusion in new eye health projects. The performance is a result of new eye health projects under UK Aid Match and Disability Inclusive Development. The performance is decreasing from last year, and is below target (45.83%). However, two countries without dedicated eye health projects have been included: Guinea (DESSO Human Resources for Eye Health) and Burkina Faso (cataract linked to trachoma activities). These do not have gender strategies and have small outputs. With these removed, the performance would be on target at 50%. The success of gender strategies varies: some countries are successful (ie Zambia), and others not so (ie Pakistan). COVID-19 may account for some of this, as in Sierra Leone. Some countries (ie Mozambique) have improved but are not yet on target: women accessing cataract surgery increased from 34% to 46% over six years. The next step is to assess, learn from and scale up successful strategies to improve performance. We have seen positive progress in education policy across all countries with education programmes. Our work, and that of partners and other organisations, continued to influence national policies in line with the UNCRPD, despite the pandemic.
Trend
Status On target On target On target target target On target
Approaching Approaching
Result 50.00 61.54 84.62 46.88 45.83 37.50
Target 30.00 58.00 80.00 50.00 50.00 37.50
Indicator Lag: % of countries where Sightsavers has an eye health project that demonstrate improved access to eye care services integrated into health systems, where this can be measured Lead: % of countries where Sightsavers has an eye health project that have contributed to identification of gaps/needs through an eye health system assessment in the past 10 years Lead: % of countries where Sightsavers has an eye health project that have contributed to identification of gaps/needs through a prevalence survey in the past 10 years Lead: % of health projects with clearly defined strategies to improve access by people with disabilities Lead: % of health projects that reach more women than men Lag: % of countries with education projects where government has an education policy in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Objective 1. Demonstrate scalable cost-effective approaches to eye health 2. Demonstrate scalable approaches to developing inclusive education
SIM card: results of beneficiary indicators For results of all indicators and more details, see dashboard-public.sightsavers.org
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Annual report 2020

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Performance notes We continued to implement education programmes in eight countries, with a focus on quality and replicability. We continue to work with partners to help develop supportive policies, quality teacher training and curriculum development, and to provide assistive devices for children. The evidence helped to influence duty bearers to improve the quality of, and access to, national-level education systems. The trend of improving performance has continued, showing ongoing progress in the policy environment at national level. The countries where performance is poor are where we have neither a social inclusion programme portfolio nor conduct systematic national advocacy. This year showed a distinct drop in performance. However, for the vast majority of countries, people with disabilities were involved in planning and M&E. Scoring is patchy on empowerment tracking and effective inclusion and empowerment, which is less within our control, but worth looking at in future programme monitoring and redesign processes. This indicator has shown continued improvement as we focus on inclusion across our entire portfolio. While most projects are meeting targets, we do have challenging programmes where sustained coverage remains difficult to reach. The reasons for not meeting targets are normally linked to insecurity. COVID-19 also delayed some implementation in 2020, shifting some treatments to 2021. This is a very encouraging result in a difficult year in which countries and projects had to adapt to COVID-19. It shows the result of sustained NTD treatments over many years. Control targets have been largely met: for trachoma, river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, elimination is within reach. Results have been improving each year. This reflects the high priority we assign to this work, and has been boosted by a clear strategy that is a core part of our flagship Ascend and Accelerate programmes.
Trend
Status target target
On target On target On target On target
Approaching Below target Approaching
Result 87.50 88.00 66.67 75.00 76.92 87.84
100.00
Target 80.00 95.00 65.00 90.00 95.00 80.00
100.00
Indicator Lead: % of education projects that are suitable for replication/adoption by government or other service providers Lag: % of countries that meet at least four of the eight criteria on our social inclusion index (B05B) Lead: % of countries where we run social inclusion and/or education projects that can demonstrate effective inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities Lead: % of health, education and NTD projects with clearly defined social inclusion strategies to include people with disabilities Lag: % of countries where Sightsavers supports specific NTD disease projects that are meeting national milestones to eliminate or control these specific NTDs Lead: % of projects that meet or exceed their MDA targets for therapeutic and geographical coverage Lead: % of NTD projects with clearly defined strategies to improve access by people with disabilities
Objective 2. Demonstrate scalable approaches to developing inclusive education 3. Demonstrate approaches that have a positive impact on the inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities 4. Deliver integrated NTD programmes in support of agreed global targets
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Output statistics

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Global output 2017 2018 2019 2020
statistics summary totals totals totals totals
People examined 14,093,230 16,364,038 11,542,420 6,309,510
Operations performed
(cataract, glaucoma surgery, diabetic
389,490 425,165 475,930 286,713
retinopathy, trichiasis and other general
eye operations)
Operations for cataracts 316,243 355,630 403,346 256,657
Spectacles dispensed 383,117 456,934 493,186 259,654
People treated for trachoma 27,604,538 17,663,974 28,538,035 11,124,713
People treated for river blindness 48,155,576 40,272,072 42,744,697 8,841,252
People treated for lymphatic
56,561,328 45,187,264 50,085,660 2,016,150
filariasis
People treated for soil-
11,873,445 3,913,216 5,890,582 4,378,966
transmitted helminths
People treated for
13,039,523 6,521,477 15,332,416 15,768,671
schistosomiasis
Total NTD treatments 157,234,410 113,558,003 142,591,390 42,129,752
Children who are blind, have low
vision or other disabilities being 7,752 8,362 13,535 9,032
supported in school
People who are blind, have low
vision or other disabilities who
received training
13,359 22,716 20,916 16,921
(eg daily living skills, mobility and
orienteering, vocational training or rights
and entitlements training)
Eye health
Neglected tropical diseases
Education/inclusion
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Statistics from previous years may have changed from previous reporting due to updated information.

Annual report 2020

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Global output 2017 2018 2019 2020
statistics summary totals totals totals totals
Health workers trained to gain
initial professional qualification
(includes ophthalmologists, cataract 39 25 12 12
surgeons, ophthalmic clinical officers/
ophthalmic nurses, optometrists, low
vision specialists and technicians)
Professionals supported on
72,781 64,440 82,836 51,670
eye health short courses
Professionals supported
on education or inclusion 60,479 30,486 94,533 5,732
short courses
Total number of village-level
volunteers trained
(includes community distribution of 267,972 248,885 269,241 137,361
treatment, primary eye care, education
and inclusion courses)
Human resource development
Volunteers
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Statistics from previous years may have changed from previous reporting due to updated information.

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Commentary

All outputs were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Programmes were running normally and hitting targets until mid-March 2020, when government restrictions on activities began in many countries. Q2was the worst period, with most programmes essentially shut down apart from emergency operations, and schools closed almost everywhere.

During Q3, things began to improve slowly, but outputs were still badly hit: outreach and mass gatherings were banned, and schools were still closed. During Q4 the situation improved further, but things were not fully up and running until the first quarter of 2021. During that quarter we saw most countries at near-normal level of outputs, but as of May 2020 there is concern that there has been a recent spike in COVID-19 cases across both Asia and east and southern Africa, which may cause a setback in outputs.

Eye health

Our full-year performance represented 61% of our annual target. In the past six years, this was the first time Sightsavers was not able to meet the annual target for examinations, highlighting the exceptional situation we faced due to the pandemic.

In India, some states, such as Bihar, reported that people were still apprehensive about visiting eye health facilities even after restrictions were lifted. A number of states, including West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, adopted alternative approaches, such as door-to-door eye screening, which improved performance.

In Pakistan, lady health workers (LHWs) – the major providers of primary examinations

in the country – had their movements severely restricted, which hit examination levels hard.

Many countries, notably Sierra Leone, Mali, Malawi and Liberia, found that the absence of primary examinations caused by COVID-19 caused an increase in secondary examinations: people with emergency eye care needs went to health facilities, causing an additional burden on services.

India achieved 60% of the country target for cataract operations, with states such as Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh reporting continued bans on elective surgery in government hospitals throughout much of the year. NGO eye hospitals were the only

Annual report 2020

facilities operating. After India, Bangladesh reported the next highest number of cataract operations performed, achieving 68% of its target. Extensive outreach camps were carried out in the last two quarters to help catch up, with Q4 beating the quarterly target by more than 50%.

Mali was one of only two countries that exceeded their 2020 annual targets for cataract operations (the other being Zambia). This was partly due to a strategy to make the operations free of cost (as part of the country’s ‘solidarity month’). Senegal also did well, achieving 89% of target, although performance waned towards the end of the year as a new wave of COVID-19 hit.

Countries such as Tanzania and Sierra Leone also performed well in terms of annual targets, with 81% and 89% performance respectively. Both countries reported actuals exceeding the quarterly targets in Q4. Other countries such as Malawi, Liberia, Uganda, and Nigeria reported lower annual surgery achievements because of COVID-19 restrictions and regulations.

Spectacle distribution fell by 47% compared with 2019, mainly because schools were closed everywhere for almost the whole year, affecting school eye health programmes, and because of the ban on outreach activities for much of the time.

Neglected tropical diseases

NTD programmes were particularly hard hit by COVID-19, with treatment numbers down about 70% for the year. The first mass drug administration (MDA) campaign to resume using the new RAMA risk assessment tool (see page 23) was completed in Jigawa state in Nigeria, in July and August 2020. By the end of the

year, MDA campaigns had resumed at least in part via RAMA in eight countries. However, many campaigns originally scheduled for October to December 2020 were delayed until the first six months of 2021, including all MDA supported by Sightsavers through the Ascend programme in Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria. This represents more than 75 million treatments, including the majority of scheduled Sightsaverssupported MDA for river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. A major increase in MDA was seen in the first quarter of 2021.

Performance on schistosomiasis and soiltransmitted helminths (intestinal worms) was much better, and was within 20% of the 2020 annual target thanks to the timely resumption of GiveWell programme activities. MDA treatments for trachoma actually met the annual target for 2020 thanks to treatments that were delivered before NTD programme activities were suspended, and a strong late-year performance by the Accelerate programme.

The number of trichiasis operations fell by 68% compared with last year, as governments banned elective surgery. Some patients also began to refuse treatment for fear of COVID-19. By the end of the year, trichiasis surgery restarted in seven countries following a successful RAMA assessment, with a limited number of operations continuing at static sites in a further three countries.

Operations for hydrocele, a symptom of lymphatic filariasis that causes painful scrotal swelling, had resumed by the end of the year in Ghana only. However, because of the large number of operations carried out in the first quarter in Nigeria, the total number actually increased by 93% compared with 2019.

Note: outputs include all those supported by consortium partners.

www.sightsavers.org

In Benin, a Sightsavers programme is aiming to reduce the spread of river blindness by distributing medication in local communities to treat and prevent the disease.

Education

Our education programmes in India and West Africa were on or above target this year, reaching many children remotely even when schools were closed because of the pandemic. Kenya made a good start at the beginning of the year, but was affected by the ongoing school closures.

Social inclusion

We reached 78% of our target for training people with disabilities, virtually all of this in India. We reached people by going door to door, offering training, rehabilitation and mobility support at home. Many training sessions were also conducted online.

Human resource development

We had hoped to significantly increase the number of eye health workers being trained, but our numbers were static because of COVID-19. Newly qualified professional eye health workers included five cataract surgeons: one female surgeon in Liberia (who graduated in the Gambia and is currently serving her internship at the Phebe Hospital) and four in Senegal (two male and two female). There was also one optometrist trained in Sierra Leone; one ophthalmic clinical officer (OCO) in Tanzania; and one ophthalmic nurse and four ophthalmic technicians in Liberia – the latter completed their training in India.

Short courses for both eye health and education were badly affected by the closure of many training schools because of the pandemic.

Annual report 2020

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Progress towards planned objectives

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Trachoma grader
Ibrahim Sellu, from
Kambia in northern
Sierra Leone, checks
Santigie’s eyes for
signs of the disease.
© Sightsavers/Michael Duff
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www.sightsavers.org

Delivering for our beneficiaries

What we planned to do What we did

Deliver on all contracts and grants, ensuring that impact is delivered for beneficiaries, and donors are happy with progress

The Ascend and Accelerate NTD programmes both delivered beyond what could have been expected in a year affected by the pandemic. Accelerate exceeded its original target for mass drug administration treatments, although surgeries and surveys were hit hard. The response from FCDO on the Ascend programme was extremely positive, with a progress report that included a score in the ‘exceeding expectations’ category. There was particular praise for the COVID-19 activities.

We worked with disability inclusion programme partners to ensure COVID-19 health messaging was produced in accessible formats in Nigeria and Bangladesh, and we collaborated with organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) to understand the impact of COVID-19 on communities from a health and economic perspective. Alongside this, we continued to make good progress in our disability-inclusive employment projects, using technology to support jobseekers with disabilities to develop their skills and prepare them for work.

More generally, programme oversight was maintained and we were able to highlight areas of greatest impact to performance and track changes as the pandemic progressed. This revealed dramatic reversals from a majority of projects rated on track in Q1 to a minority on track in Q2, but with this trend improving significantly across Q4.

Despite the intensity of the crisis monitoring response, light-touch reviews of project output performance continued, as did reviews of unrestricted projects. Reporting to donors on all grants and contracts remained timely and of high quality across the year, with additional updates being provided to some donors to enable them to understand Sightsavers’ response to the pandemic better, or to give information on activities that were adapted to COVID-19 responses within funding agreements.

Annual report 2020

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What we planned to do What we did
Undertake a programme The programme achievement audit was completed in
achievement audit June 2020 and involved collaboration across several
(PAA) to feed into a new teams. They examined the current sources of data
programme strategy that inform decisions about programme delivery
and monitoring of programme achievements, and
investigated how this could contribute to wider
strategic oversight of programme performance.
This audit provided a clear picture of the data sources
currently available as we begin to implement the
thematic strategies in 2021 and beyond. It also
feeds into development of the monitoring and
accountability frameworks, which underpin each
of the thematic strategies, and will provide a basis
to refresh and expand the data sources to meet
future reporting needs for strategy implementation
monitoring. This process has also further integrated
the quality standards assessment tools (QSATs)
process into the beneficiary SIM card indicators that
are being developed, and into the wider monitoring
and accountability frameworks, as the QSATs’ role in
organisational monitoring of the quality of our services
continues to grow.
Start to review our Our thematic strategies for eye health, neglected
thematic strategies, tropical diseases, unaddressed refractive error,
ensuring they are education and social inclusion were reviewed and
aligned with new World refreshed in line with key global strategies and
Health Organization frameworks, including the UN Convention on the
documents and adhere Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the World Report
to the Convention on on Vision, and the Roadmap for NTDs 2030.
the Rights of Persons
To help us communicate and implement the strategies,
with Disabilities
we have introduced a programme strategy that
consolidates the strategic principles that guide our
work within each thematic area, and summarises our
organisational approach to programme implementation,
evidence generation, and influencing. The programme
and thematic strategies will be finalised and launched
during the first half of 2021, with a focus on
embedding new concepts and approaches across the
organisation throughout 2021 and beyond.
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What we planned to do What we did
Continue focus on Throughout 2020, we continued to embed the
safeguarding work, safeguarding framework throughout our operations
with particular and programmes, with a focus on assessing the
attention to building safeguarding capacity of partners and offering support.
the capacity of partners Existing due diligence assessments were enhanced
with safeguarding-specific questions, and designated
safeguarding leads (DSLs) were trained to conduct
needs analysis on implementing partners. Where
needed, we focused our training on safeguarding risk
management, policy and framework development,
with a survivor-centred approach. We also carried out
country safeguarding context analyses, and the findings
fed into partner and DSL training.
The DSLs have raised the profile of our safeguarding
framework within communities. One example from
Senegal involved a two-day workshop with the
Senegalese Federation for People with Disabilities, the
Women’s Committee and wider civil society groups. The
aim of the training was to help attendees understand
the safeguarding risks faced by children and adults with
disabilities by engaging with them, and consequently
designing collaborative safeguarding policies and
processes that contribute to their safety. In India, the
DSLs developed safeguarding guidance documents and
processes for Ministry partners who were organising
transport for vulnerable passengers, such as young
women with disabilities. Guidance was developed for
the coordinators, drivers and passengers, to ensure all
were clear on best practice to keep passengers safe.
In addition In April 2021, The Gambia announced it had eliminated
trachoma, as confirmed by the World Health
Organization. The celebration included a video call
involving the Countess of Wessex and Gambian
vice-president Dr Isatou Touray.
Sightsavers has supported the government of The
Gambia to improve eye health since 1986, when a
survey found that trachoma was the third leading cause
of blindness in the country. This milestone provided
some much-needed good news during a difficult year.
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Annual report 2020

Increasing our capacities: areas where we need to excel

What we planned to do What we did

Strengthen and deepen our relationships with key partners including the International Development Association, CBM International, Fred Hollows Foundation and Orbis

Our relationship with the International Development Association (IDA) has continued to grow during the year, with collaborations focused on COVID-19 response, as well as ongoing activities around the Disability Inclusive Development and Inclusion Works programmes and the start of the new Disabled People’s Organisation capacity-building programme, all funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The pandemic has meant that a plan for a face-to-face strategy meeting to discuss the partnership has been deferred until 2021, but this reflects pragmatic reality rather than any sense of prioritisation of the partnership.

Sightsavers, CBM International, Fred Hollows Foundation and Orbis have worked together on a couple of bids for large international prizes: the MacArthur Foundation and Audacious. We reached the second round on MacArthur but ultimately neither were successful.

Our relationship with CBM International – now CBM, the German part of the previous CBM federation – has gone from strength to strength with the signing of a bilateral memorandum of understanding. A summit between the two organisations was planned, but has been deferred until we can meet face to face.

Support the rollout of the World Report on Vision through launches in relevant countries and regions

We continued to engage with the World Health Organization to support the rollout of the World Report on Vision. The pandemic led to a pause in regional and country launches, but we continue to plan for launches in 2021, working within the IAPB network in collaboration with other eye health partners. We also participated in sessions with the UN Friends of Vision group, which aims to introduce a UN resolution on eye health.

www.sightsavers.org

What we planned to do

What we did

As host of Uniting to Combat NTDs, respond to the postponement of the NTD event in Kigali (a CHOGM side event), and support induction of the new board and approval of the new strategy

A new board and consultative forum for Uniting were all elected and both groups are now up and running. The new strategy and corresponding operational plan for Uniting were both approved by the board. At time of writing there remains uncertainty over the timing and nature of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali, hence the postponement of the side event.

Review SIM card At the beginning of the year, a working group was set objectives and indicators up to lead the review of our Strategy Implementation to reflect new programme Monitoring (SIM) card. Staff from a wide range of and thematic strategies departments assessed whether the objectives and indicators were still fit for purpose and identified where updates were needed.

In addition

For the new SIM, we decided to move from ‘beneficiary’ to ‘impact’ objectives, shifting the intent of our four aims into impact measurements linked to the systemslevel change that our programmes work towards. We also wanted to clarify how we differentiate between our indicators: we opted for terminology that is easier to understand by defining indicators either as process or outcomes measurements. Several members of staff contributed to the Lancet Commission on Global Eye Health, which was published in February 2021.

Annual report 2020

Learning and growth: areas where we need to invest to achieve excellence

What we planned to do

What we did

Develop stronger approaches to ensure our growing evidence base feeds into programme implementation

Cross-team collaboration was identified last year as an area for improvement, to enable us to harness the wealth of data, information and evidence to support organisational learning, development, practice and decision-making. Cross-team groups were set up by thematic area to gather evidence from key teams to prioritise and inform decisions about the allocation of programme resources.

Given our commitment to inclusion, we focused on strengthening what we know (and need to know more about) inclusive practices and programming. We developed a three-year plan to improve our knowledge about collecting and using inclusive data in our programmes. Findings from 18 project evaluations about the inclusion of women and girls highlighted strong performance in some areas and points to improve. An animated video was commissioned to influence those involved in allocating resources, setting targets and delivering programmes.

We developed a robust research uptake and learning framework in collaboration across the organisation, which will establish core learning questions for each thematic area. These will guide the evidence generated from our projects and programmes. The framework, and learning questions, will be embedded across the portfolio in 2021.

www.sightsavers.org

What we planned to do What we did Improve communication We have undertaken a strategy refresh with engagement around our strategy refresh, and input from teams across the organisation, as well particularly internally as through semi-structured interviews with partner organisations. The thematic strategies were produced by cross-organisational working groups of staff and guided by steering groups at both operational and senior management level. Our annual programme meeting in June focused on the thematic strategy refresh, and a follow-up series of thematic webinars were held for all internal staff in October. Trustees were involved with thematic strategies relevant to their areas of interest and expertise.

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Improve communication We have undertaken a strategy refresh with engagement
around our strategy refresh, and input from teams across the organisation, as well
particularly internally as through semi-structured interviews with partner
organisations. The thematic strategies were produced
by cross-organisational working groups of staff and
guided by steering groups at both operational and
senior management level. Our annual programme
meeting in June focused on the thematic strategy
refresh, and a follow-up series of thematic webinars
were held for all internal staff in October. Trustees were
involved with thematic strategies relevant to their areas
of interest and expertise.
We hired a dedicated communications officer to
communicate our strategy. This has helped to expand
and coordinate our internal communication activities,
including creating a dedicated intranet page to
update staff on ongoing work, and developing an
e-learning module for the new SIM card. The role
also oversees programme and thematic strategy
communications, including launching, sharing and
embedding the new strategies, which will take place
throughout 2021 and 2022.
Articulate ‘value Our external communication this year has been
proposition’ overtaken by the need to increase communication
and messaging about the impact of COVID-19. We have also increased
for stakeholders our fundraising activity to take advantage of lower
media costs and increased audience reach during
lockdowns. We haven’t had the chance this year to
carry out a considered and systematic assessment of
how to articulate our value proposition for different
stakeholders. However, we are looking at how we can
increase the extent to which our external messaging
reflects the voices of beneficiaries, partners and staff
in our programme countries.
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Annual report 2020

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What we planned to do What we did
Deliver the first stage This project has progressed well. We now have
of a two-year project personalised dashboards for the regional directors that
to use analytical tools include data from the human resources and finance
to enhance decision- teams, as well as output statistics and QSATs. We have
making across Sightsavers been supporting staff across the organisation to build,
and help programme maintain and adapt their own dashboards, with the data
teams improve their analysis and reporting team (DART) playing an advisory
understanding of role. Dashboards have been built by teams to cover key
project performance areas, from financial audit and forecasting to disability
disaggregated data and crisis planning in response to
the pandemic.
We have developed a project analysis Power BI
dashboard for data entered into the portal, and are
continuing to work with teams in Tanzania, Bangladesh
and India to develop their analytics tools to support
project management decisions. We have also
developed a rigorous analytical tool for the quarterly
output statistics data and continue to develop our
bi-annual QSAT reports.
In addition In June 2020 we carried out a survey of all Sightsavers
staff, receiving a 99% response rate. The results
were really positive: 94.1% said Sightsavers was a
great place to work. The leadership team was seen
as performing well by 93.9% of people, and 89% said
the organisation’s response to the pandemic had been
handled well. Questions on equality scored well, with
88.7% saying people were treated equally irrespective
of ethnicity, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation or
religion, and 90.4% saying they felt they were treated
with fairness and respect. The areas where we need to
improve are on dealing with poor-performing employees
and improving access for people with disabilities.
The wellbeing taskforce played a critical role in
supporting staff during the pandemic. Wellbeing
sessions were introduced within team meetings across
the organisation and we appointed several new mental
health first aiders.
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Alusine Koroma is part of an eye health team travelling to local communities in Sierra Leone to examine people for signs of trachoma.

Annual report 2020

Resources: funding our work and ensuring efficient and strategic use of resources

Sightsavers fundraises in the UK and India, and has subsidiaries in Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the UAE and USA. Information about their registration, relationship with the UK charity and financial performance is contained in the financial accounts.

What we planned to do What we did Deliver voluntary We exceeded voluntary income targets, with income targets with particularly strong performance from individual giving a clear focus on return in the UK, Italy and Ireland. In individual giving we on investment (ROI) made decisions based on ROI seeing some major opportunities in TV advertising, including some spot buys at peak time that would normally be out of our price range. Critical to this was the ability to be agile and make rapid decisions. Some areas were hit by the pandemic – notably key supporters in the UK, trusts and corporates in Ireland, and individuals in India (where face-to-face fundraising plays a significant part and had to be shut down). We received £5 million less from GiveWell in 2020 than in 2019, primarily because we had less absorptive capacity on deworming following a huge donation in 2019.

Test digital fundraising in In the US, we tested paid social advertising (mainly the US on Facebook) and secured a separate Google Grant account to support our paid search activity. We also adapted our global spring, summer, autumn and Christmas appeals online for the US market, including a Giving Tuesday campaign.

Visitors to the US website increased by more than 50%, and we received more than four times as many online donations. The Facebook advertising campaigns brought in more than 1,100 cash donations and 100 regular donations. Following the positive results, we plan to continue to test, scale up and optimise our digital activity in the US in 2021, based on analysis of the data and audiences from 2020.

www.sightsavers.org

What we planned to do

What we did

Develop relationships with institutional donors and foundations to increase and diversify income

We developed relationships with donors including the German and Norwegian governments, who jointly invested in a disability inclusive employment programme. We continued to deepen our relationships with existing institutional donors, including GiveWell (where once again we were cited as a top charity), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Irish Aid and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office through our programme delivery and policy engagement work.

Relationships with our Accelerate donors (notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The ELMA Foundation, Virgin Unite and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation) also went from strength to strength: they showed tremendous flexibility and commitment during the pandemic, where outputs were inevitably compromised. Continue to establish In early 2020, the decision was made to stop actively our presence in Nordic fundraising in Sweden, with a view to eventually closing countries, while down our Swedish entity. This was due to challenges ensuring we manage with fundraising ratios required by regulators. We our relationships have a significant number of very loyal regular givers with regulators in Sweden, so we will continue to steward these donors and ensure their support continues to support our mission while it remains financially viable. So far, attrition levels are far lower than expected.

The head of fundraising and marketing role in Norway is now established and is building strong relationships with regulators, third-party suppliers and key donors. This has already made a positive impact by ensuring the regulators support our plans and approach. We are also starting to see significant donations from individuals and companies.

We are working hard to optimise the core individual giving programme in Norway. Significant progress has been made with digital fundraising and appeal mailings to warm supporters, and we are investigating ways to reduce the costs of administering our fundraising activity.

Annual report 2020

What we planned to do

Produce a value-formoney report (initially internal only) aimed at increasing the understanding of staff, describing approaches, and highlighting valuefor-money examples from across the organisation. Continue to work with partners to expand their understanding of IATI and to increase the amount of data they publish

Re-engineer our accounts payable process to improve our robustness against cyber threats

What we did

In preparation for producing a value-for-money report, we obtained details and examples that demonstrate value for money both within our programme work and in wider organisational operations. The aim was to use case studies to illustrate examples in detail while also highlighting shorter snapshots focused on value-formoney elements. Unfortunately, the pandemic meant we had to focus on other management priorities in 2020 and therefore aim to produce the report in 2021 instead.

We have continued to make good progress with International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) reporting, increasing the quality and timeliness of the information we publish, strengthening the understanding of the concept and practicalities of IATI among staff in our country offices, and working with partners to ensure they understand their responsibilities to publish data and know how to do it. This is a work in progress: our international partners have very much bought into IATI, while work with ministries and local partners is more complex.

Our global financial framework provides a structure for the accounts payable function. Business requirements around the process have become more complex over the past few years, considering broader compliance aspects, governance, fraud, supplier purpose and setup, foreign exchange and internal segregation of duties through to payment and accountability.

Over the years, we have strengthened these controls by addressing both the technical and individual function. We have improved supplier invoicing and financial changes, addressing the risk posed by the global increase of invoice and supplier fraud perpetuated by cyber-crime. Technical mitigations to support these controls, and the wider security of Sightsavers’ systems, have been tested and implemented, and will continue with planned activities in 2021 and beyond. We need to reduce our reliance on manual processes and email communications, ensure the process addresses all key areas of risk and is consistently applied across all parties we trade with.

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What we planned to do

What we did

Assess our liquidity reserving by improving short-term cashflow forecasting and tracking of volatility in our cash position. Develop the nextlevel treasury management system to support liquidity and financing

In 2020 we implemented a treasury management system to improve short-term cashflow forecasting, cash management and the ability to track volatility and liquidity in cash held. The system now provides a consolidated view of our cash position across all but a few of our bank accounts. The system also has direct links to both the accounting and procure-to-pay systems, which enables short-term cashflow forecasting and modelling. This provides the tools needed for real-time management of organisational liquidity.

To reduce the potential spread of COVID-19, eye health worker Vamba Sheriff (right) has his temperature taken before he carries out eye examinations in Sierra Leone.

At Prosper Kamara school in western Mali, teacher Abdoul’s class includes two students with visual impairments who are supported by Sightsavers’ inclusive education programme.

Fundraising

The relationships we have with our supporters, and the kind donations they give, are vital to the work we do and the people that benefit from them, and this support is front and centre when we develop our fundraising programmes.

We aim to be transparent, ethical in our approach and efficient with our fundraising budgets. We are always conscious of the responsibility we hold towards our supporters, alongside our beneficiaries, and do our best to make those relationships as meaningful and positive as possible.

With efficiency in mind, we regularly update our return-on-investment analysis, enabling us to see which channels are performing best across our global fundraising markets. This helps us to be flexible with our investment and make quick decisions, optimising our activity so we can maximise return on our spend, enabling us to raise more money and deliver more support for our beneficiaries.

While most of our work is done in house, there are occasions where it is cheaper and more effective to work alongside professional fundraisers and commercial organisations. All contracts and partnerships we enter into are subject to due diligence and close management.

External partners are subject to regular visits and training from the fundraising team (conducted virtually during the pandemic), and partners are expected to deliver against closely monitored service level agreements. Any third-party organisations that perform or support fundraising activities on our behalf are required to sign and adhere to our supplier code of conduct.

Sightsavers is a member of the Fundraising Regulator and the Direct Marketing Association and abides by the direct marketing code of practice and the fundraising code of practice. For our international offices, Sightsavers is registered with the fundraising regulators in their respective countries, where there is one.

In 2020, Sightsavers received 77 fundraising complaints from the public and 19 complaints on related issues (such as administration) and following the potential data breach at Blackbaud, our supporter database provider. These were all received and resolved by us; none were received from the regulator. This is an increase on the figure from 2019, mainly due to our TV advertising reaching a much larger audience.

We continue to put significant effort into supporter care and take all feedback seriously. We aim to respond to questions

and complaints in a timely way: in 2020, we responded to most complaints received via email or telephone within 24 hours, and those received via letter within a week.

We take our responsibility to protect vulnerable people seriously. We follow guidance from the Institute of Fundraising about treating donors fairly, and we ensure all our agency partners are aware of this. We also have a safeguarding policy, including our code of conduct, and a supporter promise, which sets out our approach to protecting our beneficiaries and supporters. These documents are available at www.sightsavers.org/policies .

In April 2021, we received confirmation that HMRC had completed its checks on a recent Gift Aid claim made by Sightsavers and was satisfied that all documentation and evidence relating to this claim, and our internal processes and checks, were in order.

Annual report 2020

Equity, diversity and inclusion

Sightsavers has always been committed to equity and inclusion, although historically we have concentrated on ensuring our programmes address these issues. This year we have focused on how they affect our own organisation.

The Disability Inclusion Working Group (formerly the Social Inclusion Working Group) was founded in 2016, and in 2019 we achieved level 3 status (the highest possible) in the UK government’s Disability Confident scheme. The group’s work has continued to influence our approach to inclusion.

The results of the latest employee survey, carried out in June 2020, show a significant increase in how staff rate our efforts to recruit more people with disabilities and to make the organisation more welcoming and accessible. However, there is still a long road ahead before we are satisfied.

7.9% of Sightsavers staff reported having a disability

2020 staff survey

The survey was completed by 709 staff and consultants from all regions and directorates, equivalent to 99% of total employees. It included two main questions on disability.

1. Do you have a disability as defined by the World Health Organization, irrespective of whether you selfidentify as having a disability/as a disabled person? 56 staff (7.9% of respondents) reported a disability, of which 44 are based in the UK office (11.9% of UK staff respondents), while 12 are based overseas (3.5% of overseas staff respondents).

2. Do you self-identify as having a disability/as a disabled person? 49 staff (6.9% of respondents) answered yes: 38 are based in the UK office (10.3% of UK staff who responded), while 11 staff are based overseas (3.2% of overseas staff who responded).

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Racial Diversity Working Group

In November 2020 we set up the Racial Diversity Working Group (RDWG) to explore and better understand issues around racial diversity at Sightsavers. We have not had any complaints raised around race, and our staff survey did not suggest we had a problem in this area, but this meant that there was a risk of complacency, so we wanted to delve deeper.

Staff from across the organisation responded positively to the creation of the group and expressed enthusiasm about work

that the group plans to deliver in 2021 and beyond. The group is chaired by Sightsavers regional director for West Africa Fatoumata Diouf, with membership consisting of six employees based in Sightsavers offices in the UK, Africa, and Asia.

A focus group was also created, with membership consisting largely of Black and minority ethnic staff based in the UK office, recognising that this group may have a particular perspective as a minority within that office.

The purpose of the group is to:

Assess our working Establish or Recommend an environment improve our action plan to to identify any methods for foster and improve potential issues preventing, racial inclusion of racism monitoring, reporting and addressing racism

Communicate our values of equity and inclusion internally and externally, to counter racist behaviour

The group plans to carry out a diversity survey to assess our racial diversity and inclusion status. The results will form the basis of a framework to address any issues raised, and will help to create an action plan to promote a more racially inclusive working environment. The survey will be carried out by an external provider: we aim to complete the process by mid-2021.

Annual report 2020

Environment

In 2020, we started an environmental project to both address our impact on the environment and to see how we can better consider issues such as climate change within our programmes.

We have drafted a global environmental policy, to be finalised in 2021, and have started to design an environmental management system, which will enable us to monitor and identify ways to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and waste. Meanwhile, we will increase our focus

on climate resilient programming and environmental sustainability in project design during 2021. Although we are not required to formally report our environmental data outside the UK, we will report our emissions data in our global environmental report, to be issued annually from 2021 onwards.

UK Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR)

Summary of energy use in our UK operations in 2020, in accordance with SECR requirements

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Energy consumption kWh
Electricity 101,277
Gas 0
Transport fuel 0
Fuel for electricity generation 0
Emissions tCO2e
Scope 1
Emissions from combustion of gas in buildings 0
Emissions from combustion of fuel for transport purposes 0
Scope 2
Emissions from purchased electricity (location-based method) 23.61172
Total scope 1 and 2 emissions 23.61172
Scope 3
Emissions from business travel in rental cars or employee vehicles where 0
company is responsible for purchasing the fuel
Emissions from upstream transport and distribution losses and 0
excavation and transport of fuels
Total emissions 23.61172
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*Methodology: GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard 2014

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Kuete David is from West Cameroon, where river blindness is still a problem. We are looking at new ways to target the disease in the region, including local testing and different medication.

Annual report 2020 Sightsavers driver Moses Korsor digs his vehicle out of the mud in Sinoe County, southern Liberia.

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Risks and challenges

Risks

The primary risks faced by Sightsavers are essentially the same as in the 2019 report, although our thinking around COVID-19 has developed a great deal since then. We maintain a risk log at organisational level and for all major programmes, with the largest having their own bespoke governance processes.

The log is reviewed at various levels: the management team checks it regularly, the audit committee reviews it at every meeting, and the council discusses risk at least once

a year in depth. Trustees are satisfied that adequate systems are in place to monitor, manage and, where appropriate, mitigate Sightsavers’ exposure to the major risks.

www.sightsavers.org

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Risk Risk management comments
Recruiting and Overall attrition levels within the organisation have been
retaining key very low: unmanaged attrition for 2020 was 5.4%. Aside
employees and from the loss of two senior fundraisers at the beginning
contractors of 2020 (see below) and the predicted retirement of
some country directors, retention of key employees and
contractors has been high.
In response to the loss of our two most senior UK
fundraisers, we restructured to move corporates and
foundations to the institutional funding team and merge
major donors with individual giving, to create a fundraising
and marketing team. We promoted head of digital giving Ella
Pierce to the role of director of fundraising and marketing,
which has worked out very well, as results will attest.
Unlike some other organisations, we did not impose salary
cuts (our fundraising performance meant that such actions
were not necessary) and were able to apply our normal
reward policy. We also made a huge effort to increase
internal communication to the whole organisation, including
direct weekly videos from the CEO, to maintain a sense of
connection within the organisation at a difficult time.
2021 is likely to be more difficult as we deal with the Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office cuts (see page 8).
Safeguarding This is covered in some detail in the objectives table on
beneficiaries, page 43. Serious safeguarding incidents are mentioned in the
supporters and section on Charity Commission reporting on page 76. In the
external contacts employee survey, we were pleased to see that 92.6% of staff
said they knew what they should do if they had concerns
about safeguarding issues.
A key consideration has been the question of committing
to the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. Our view is that we
fully endorse the spirit of the scheme and have included
many aspects in our own processes (for example, during
recruitment we ask prospective employees whether their
current or previous employer has any concerns over their
conduct). However, we don’t believe the legality of the
scheme in several jurisdictions has been established.
We will continue to review this position.
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Annual report 2020

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Risk Risk management comments
Health, safety and We have maintained our comprehensive reporting approach
security events and and have increased our resilience team. We have particularly
other safeguarding focused on Nigeria, countries in the Sahel, Democratic
issues concerning Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.
employees
We have improved our remote working capabilities, initially
aimed at supporting staff in countries where offices have
to be closed because of conflict. This will stand us in good
stead now during the COVID-19 crisis.
Safeguarding training is mandatory for all staff and trustees.
We have a designated safeguarding trustee (Barry Hoffman)
to whom whistleblowing can be directed if staff do not want
to go via management.
Poor quality or The work mentioned above on programme achievement
strategic alignment of audits and monitoring and evaluation formed a key aspect of
programmes our mitigation of this risk in 2020.
Inability to manage We have significantly expanded our teams to manage the
consortia to deliver substantial consortia in NTDs and disability work.
on contracts
We have dedicated technical experts to support the
and secure new
programmes, including those who understand factors such as
opportunities
behavioural change and water/sanitation. Each programme
has its own governance arrangements to ensure oversight.
We have ensured that all our contractual obligations to
donors flow through the consortia, with partner contracts
reflecting these, and we undertake regular financial capacity
checks as required.
We have revamped our supply chain processes and brought
in dedicated supply chain staff.
Inability to raise We maintained frequent reporting during 2020 to monitor
adequate voluntary supporter attrition rates and to receive the earliest possible
income in mature and information about the performance of voluntary income.
new markets As shown on page 78, 2020 was a record year for individual
giving in all our European markets, and we found supporter
attrition rates were lower than normal.
We kept a close eye on ROI throughout and were able to
act very quickly to take advantage of spot buy TV adverts in
peak time due to lower media costs.
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Risk Risk management comments
Poor programme The section on page 48 details the increased monitoring
implementation leading we undertook this year, and the new Power BI work we are
to failures in services undertaking to improve this. The strategic refresh will lead
to beneficiaries or to new indicators and frameworks, which should enhance
delivering expected our mitigation of this risk from 2022 onwards.
outputs and outcomes
Media crisis in Media coverage of the development sector has focused of
core markets late on the merger of the former Department for International
Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
and the budget cuts that will ensue from the dramatic cut in
aid funding from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income (see
page 8). There has also been coverage of problems of racism
and bullying in a number of charities, while issues around
safeguarding have not disappeared.
We were questioned in the press about our approach to
sexual exploitation and abuse: in particular, the fact that
we do not have a blanket ban on staff having a sexual
relationship with any beneficiary. Our policy remains that
we have zero tolerance for sexual abuse or exploitation.
However, our beneficiary set is very wide, including anyone
who uses a health facility that we support, or is a member of
an organisation for people with disabilities. It is possible that
a staff member may have a spouse or partner who falls into
these categories, so a blanket ban on all sexual relationships
is not appropriate. We explained this to the Charity
Commission, FCDO and the IDC, who were all understanding
of our position. We expect the media to continue to focus
on the impact of the aid cuts over the next year.
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Annual report 2020

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Risk Risk management comments
Inability to replace We have put considerable efforts into our relationship with
or grow institutional DFID and then with FCDO, delivering to a high standard on
income all contracts and supporting DFID/FCDO on policy matters.
We have also placed a number of positive media stories about
Sightsavers’ work that has been funded by both departments.
We have focused on building relationship with other
institutional funders and foundations, both those that
currently fund us (such as Accelerate donors, GiveWell and
Irish Aid) and some new foundations, notably in Switzerland.
We were successful in obtaining a new European
Commission grant for inclusive education work in Zambia
through Sightsavers Ireland.
We recognise the importance of diversification, especially
if the reduction in FCDO’s overall funding is not temporary,
and have been pleased to secure new funding from USAID
and the German government.
Inappropriate We have had positive reports from audits and the independent
controls review panel of Accountable Now. The African finance
team has been a useful addition, and we have been able to
coordinate our financial capacity-building of country teams.
We have improved our invoice processing controls following
a cyber-attack at the end of 2019 and are reviewing our
business systems as part of the strategy refresh.
Governance and We have recently appointed Professor Margaret Gyapong
organisational- as a trustee to fill the vacancy left by Uche Amazigo. Prof
level regulatory Gyapong is based in Ghana and has significant knowledge
challenges, such as of NTDs, where a gap had arisen at board level because of
forced federation, Uche’s departure. We look forward to working with her.
new regulatory
The biggest governance challenge this year has been the
hurdles and strategic
introduction of the INGO Bill in India. This has introduced
misalignment of
significant restrictions, including banning all onward
boards
financial grants to partners from funds sent from outside
India into the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)
account, plus a restriction of 20% of funds in this account
to be spent on anything deemed to be administration. We
are now paying most partners directly from the UK, and with
careful management are able to meet the restrictions. We are
re-applying for our FCRA registration and will find out later
this year whether we are compliant enough to be granted a
new registration.
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www.sightsavers.org

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Risk Risk management comments
Financial loss, The privileged access management tool Beyond Trust has
disruption or damage been rolled out to all IT staff, as well as staff from external
to our reputation developers who access our systems as administrators. This
as a result of data includes all web-based administration platforms.
loss, ICT failure or in
Supplier due diligence and onboarding activities have been
information security
reviewed following the incident at Blackbaud, our supporter
process controls
database provider. We are working closely with Blackbaud
and other high-risk suppliers to review security and any
accreditations to ensure we are as safe as possible.
Our Cyber Essentials certification was renewed in
November 2020, and multi-factor authentication has been
enabled on all relevant platforms.
Financial loss Detailed cashflow forecasting is now reported weekly.
or operational A cross-organisational liquidity group has been set up to
constraints as a result ensure a laser focus on liquidity management. Real-time
of treasury activities, cash information across our full suite of bank accounts is
including credit loss, now available via the new treasury management system.
foreign exchange
Forex management via hedging has continued, although
movement, liquidity
there has been considerable volatility because of the
or inability to transfer
COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit (and now more recently the
funds internationally
UK vaccine programme).
COVID-19 The risk from the global pandemic became more embedded
into the mainstream risk log, rather than as an independent
suite, as we went through the year. The crisis team wound
up from mid-year and we returned to normal management
via the management team and regular team meetings. The
resilience team continued to focus on business continuity,
security and travel (although there was no international
travel once staff were back in their country of origin). We
communicated more frequently with staff, donors, suppliers
and partners. Income monitoring was carried out in the
normal way: it soon became clear that the pandemic had
boosted voluntary income. We also carried out regular
programme monitoring to assess impact on programmes
(see page 24).
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Annual report 2020

Challenges during 2020 and into the future

As this report makes clear, the dominant challenge for Sightsavers in 2020 – and for all international development organisations, and organisations generally – has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were, however, other challenges that should not be forgotten and that continue to reverberate.

Safeguarding

The safeguarding issue has not gone away, and new allegations have recently surfaced around Oxfam. A lot of work has been done in the sector, but it is clear that problems remain: for Sightsavers, the ongoing focus is on partners, to ensure they have the necessary systems and processes in place. We must also ensure that people in the communities where we work recognise what is and isn’t acceptable and feel confident raising issues: stigma often prevents this from happening. There is much still to do in tackling what can be deeply embedded cultural issues.

Brexit

At the start of 2020 we were concerned about uncertainties surrounding Brexit. Now that the transition period is over, it is still not clear what impact Brexit will have on Sightsavers, beyond the obvious inability to raise European Union funding in the UK. We have demonstrated that we can still do this as Sightsavers Ireland. The pandemic has overshadowed Brexit considerations, so it is difficult to know what impact it may have on major donors. Our Christmas appeal in 2020 was a huge success despite both COVID-19 and Brexit: income came in later because of postal delays, but eventually beat target by a considerable margin.

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Funding cuts

The Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office merged at the end of last year, and the restructure is still not complete. Budget cuts were implemented in 2020 in response to reductions in gross national income, but these have been overshadowed by the huge cuts implemented following the government reducing its budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income (see page 8). The new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has had to contend with a restructure and a massive budget reduction at the same time, which has stretched its organisational capacity to the limit, and perhaps beyond.

Conflict

Security and conflict affected our ability to work in several countries during 2020, and the threat level in some has increased. COVID-19 has exacerbated these concerns, with drug thefts (particularly of Mectizan[®] ) increasing significantly. At the time of writing, Africa is only just beginning to receive its first vaccines: we are concerned that distribution may spark further unrest as there is unlikely to be enough to go around. Conversely, we may see a high degree of vaccine hesitancy, which could prolong the pandemic and adversely affect health services.

Cyber crime

Incidents of cyber crime – notably ransomware attacks – have escalated during the pandemic. Sightsavers continues to invest in security, but this year showed that vulnerabilities can affect even huge suppliers such as Blackbaud. Increasing vigilance will be needed, including on social media.

Annual report 2020

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Our plans for 2021

Our objectives must be caveated by the extent to which the pandemic will affect our income and our ability to deliver. At the time of writing this is still unknown, although activities are likely to be affected to some degree.

Delivering for our beneficiaries

Increasing our capacities: areas where we need to excel

Ensure we have a balanced and resilient programme portfolio that maximises impact for beneficiaries and donors.
Finalise and implement refreshed thematic strategies within Sightsavers and across our partnerships.
Maintain ongoing high standards of delivery on all major contracts.
Continue to strengthen our monitoring, evaluation and learning processes across our programmes, including start-up support for new restricted and unrestricted funded projects and an effective programme oversight process.
Continue to develop our organisational safeguarding framework, focusing on partners and on community awareness
Enhance, expand and embed our beneficiary feedback processes.
Finalise, approve and roll out the SIM card review and upgrade to reflect new programme and thematic strategies, including indicators.
Support the rollout and embedding of the WHO World Report on Vision through launches in relevant countries and regions, which were paused because of the pandemic.
Build additional regional support in our programme supply chain, monitoring, evidence and learning, and resilience operational areas, while ensuring collaborative approaches across support functions.
Design and roll out our environmental management system to underpin our new environmental policy.
Develop our strategic alliances to enable us to increase our joint impact, ranging from new partnerships such as CBM through to long-standing relationships such as the World Health Organization.

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Learning and growth: areas where we need to invest to achieve excellence

Continue to strengthen our programme data capture and our evidence and learning processes to ensure our growing evidence base feeds into programme design, implementation, and adaptation, as well as in policy influencing.
Contribute to the global inclusive data evidence base by sharing our experience and learning internally and with other development partners.
Continue to deliver flexible and interactive analytical tools, such as Power BI dashboards, to enhance our decision-making across Sightsavers, with a focus on country offices management information.
Develop and implement a coherent and consistent approach to measuring strategic progress by developing monitoring, accountability and learning frameworks, with indicators that help link performance from project to organisational level.

Resources: funding our work, ensuring efficient and strategic use of resources

Enhance and upscale our digital fundraising programme through increased testing, data insight and conversion rate optimisation resource.
Explore the opportunity for a new fundraising programme, to better steward and nurture mid-level givers.
Continue to optimise our voluntary fundraising activity based on data and return on investments, paying particular attention to lessons from successful activity during the pandemic.
Optimise the use of our unrestricted resources, undertaking targeted investments to support the refreshed strategic framework.
Enhance our forecasting and scenario planning, in response to the challenging funding environment and increased economic uncertainty.
Continue to improve how we showcase our value-for-money work, both internally and externally, bringing together examples and learning from all aspects of the organisation, and continue to strengthen our approach to IATI.
Ensure we manage our liquidity closely by developing our cash position reporting and improving country offices’ internal controls in liquidity management.
Manage the reopening of offices and the resumption of travel to ensure it is COVID-secure.
Manage FCDO budget cuts to protect the organisation, its beneficiaries and mission as best we can.

Annual report 2020

Structure, governance

and accountability

Sightsavers is the working name of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. Originally founded in 1950, it is now incorporated by Royal Charter dated 28 February 1990, as amended on 8 July 2009 (company number RC000706) and is a charity registered in England and Wales (207544) and Scotland (SC038110). It is regulated by the Charity Commission.

We have an international council of trustees committed to maintaining a high standard of corporate governance. Council members, all of whom are non-executive, are drawn from diverse, international backgrounds and bring a broad range of relevant experience and skills to council discussions. Trustees are elected to the council by other trustees, normally for two terms of four years, although this can be extended in exceptional circumstances (such as where a particular skill cannot easily be replaced). This dispensation was used last year to extend the terms of Chris Kinder (vice chair) and Manoj Parulekar (who is the UK observer on the India board) because of the uncertainties of COVID-19. Both the terms were extended for a further two years.

Recruitment of new trustees is based upon consideration of skills, always mindful of the need to reflect diversity and maintain a balance of individuals from different countries. Depending on the gap to be filled, this may be achieved via existing networks or by advertisement.

All trustees complete a tailored induction programme to familiarise themselves with their statutory responsibilities, their role within the council, the governance framework and Sightsavers’ objectives. They also have full access to the e-learning induction programme for staff, and key

programme database and performance measurement systems. It is now mandatory for all trustees to complete an e-learning course on safeguarding.

Performance of the council, both collectively and as individual trustees, is periodically assessed, typically every two years. An assessment has recently been completed, with results available in spring 2021: there were no significant findings

There are four committees of the council:

Audit , which monitors and reviews audit activities, the risk and control framework, the effectiveness of our processes and the statutory accounts/annual report.
Investment , which monitors investment performance and treasury activities, including oversight of the UK-defined benefit pension scheme.
Remuneration , which monitors remuneration policy and salary decisions.
Governance , which monitors legal and registration issues in the countries where we work, and advises on the appointment of trustees and honorary officers.

Committees may include specialists who are not members of the council, but who volunteer to use their expertise to assist the committees. As well as the formal governance committees, a programme expert group meets typically twice a year and provides advice to the executive and insight on more detailed programme matters to the Council.

There are clear distinctions between the roles of the council and of senior management, to whom day-to-day management is delegated. Matters such as policy and strategic plans are prepared by senior management for

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consideration and approval by the council. The key leadership team, set up to facilitate decision-making at management level, is the management team, consisting of a wide range of senior staff drawn from across the organisation. This includes the regional directors, the CEOs of India and Ireland, and senior staff across the directorates. There is also a people team, which meets when required to discuss strategic HR matters. We have set up a strategy refresh steering group and a series of working groups to tackle the strategy review process.

The organisation is structured with four main directorates, whose leaders report to the CEO. These are:

Policy and programme strategy, which includes research, evidence, technical leadership, institutional funding and relations (including trusts, foundations and corporates) policy and advocacy, and communications and media. Large disability consortia programmes are also managed through this directorate.
Operations, planning and finance , which includes all programme implementation, monitoring, operations planning, finance, assurance and reporting. All country offices report to this directorate through regional offices.
NTDs , which includes the management of large NTD consortia grants and contracts, and technical support to NTD programmes.

The CEO of India reports day-to-day to the CEO of the international organisation, although he is ultimately responsible to the Sightsavers India board. The CEO of Ireland reports to the chair of Ireland and the Irish board, with a link to the international CEO. The director of the Uniting to Combat NTDs secretariat, which Sightsavers hosts, also reports into the CEO.

This structure was changed slightly in April 2020. Major giving is now split between the fundraising and marketing directorate (including major donors) and the directorate of policy and programme strategy (with trusts, foundations and corporates moving to the institutional funding team).

As of 31 December 2020, there were seven subsidiary undertakings consolidated within the group: Sightsavers (Trading) Limited, Sightsavers Ireland, Sightsavers International (Italia), Sightsavers International Inc (USA), Sightsavers Inc (USA), Insamlingsstiftelsen Sightsavers International Sverige (based in Sweden), and Stiftelsen Sightsavers International Norge (based in Norway) Our presence in the UAE is consolidated under our licensed branch located in Dubai.

Sightsavers is a charity registered in Scotland with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, registration number SC038110. In 2020 Sightsavers raised £4.9 million (2019: £5.1 million) from donors based in Scotland.

Fundraising and marketing , which is responsible for individual supporters across all our markets, including major donors (although in the case of India and Ireland this is an advisory role), and our website.

Annual report 2020

Surveyor Ete M’Boa records data from a study into river blindness carried out in the Atacora region in northern Benin.

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Remuneration

Sightsavers’ policy on remuneration is to ensure that the reward package offered to staff is competitive with other organisations in the areas where we work, both in terms of geography and type of role, to ensure we are able to recruit and retain staff. As stated previously in this report, inability to do this is seen as a key risk to the organisation.

We have a remuneration committee of trustees, including one with extensive HR experience. The policy (approved in 2016) is based around benchmarks at the median level, with flexibility as required, particularly for roles that are difficult to benchmark. The salaries of all individuals who report to the CEO, and that of the CEO herself, are individually approved by the remuneration committee, as is the overall policy.

As of December 2020, the gross annual salary of the CEO was £140,956. This was the highest salary in the organisation, although one other individual had higher remuneration because of international allowances. There is no bonus scheme or car allowance for any members of staff and the CEO has the same pension rights as other UK staff.

All UK staff are paid at least the living wage, including apprentices and interns. The ratio of the highest-paid person to the lowest in the UK is approximately 8:1 (excluding interns), and the ratio of highest to median is 3:1.

As of the end of December 2020, Sightsavers’ mean and median gender pay gaps in the UK were calculated to be 0.22% in favour of women and 1.47% in favour of men, respectively. This compares well with other organisations, both within and outside the sector, with both measures decreasing from last year. The proportion of women in the lowest salary quartile is the least of all four salary quartiles.

In 2020, Sightsavers participated in a very limited way in the UK government coronavirus jobs retention scheme. A total of 19 UK employees were furloughed for certain periods during 2020, either partially or fully. These roles were predominantly supporting activities that were significantly reduced as a result of the pandemic, for example travel, office management and recruitment. Sightsavers received total funding of £71,000 from the UK government in 2020 under the scheme.

Annual report 2020

Accountability

Sightsavers is a member of Accountable Now, an international organisation dedicated to helping international NGOs demonstrate and improve their accountability. We submitted the ninth formal report to the charter company independent review panel (IRP) last year on the basis of performance up to mid-2020.

The panel reported that the report showed strong dynamic accountability, mentioning beneficiary feedback mechanisms and complaints as an area for improvement.

To view the full report, visit www.tiny.cc/accountablenow

Governance code

The Charity Governance Code is a voluntary code that was revised in 2020, addressing matters of good governance across seven principles: organisational purpose, leadership, integrity, decision-making (risk and control), board effectiveness, diversity, and openness and accountability. These principles are central to the core values of our organisation.

Sightsavers’ board remains committed to maintaining our compliance with the code, which is reviewed annually and overseen by the Audit Committee.

A review in 2020 showed we continue to comply with the Charity Governance Code. To further embed the principles of

the code within our organisation, we set up the following activities, which will continue throughout 2021:

Improving the relationship between staff and trustees through Q&A sessions and trustee visits to our programmes, once safe travel conditions return.
Conducting a board effectiveness review, which reported at the end of April 2021. This provided an opportunity to review the wider governance arrangements of the board and its sub-committees.
Strengthening our supplier and contract management and providing more support and transparency for individuals and organisations who want to work with us.

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Dipa Roy and Rekha Aktar, from Access Bangladesh Foundation, communicating in sign language. Sightsavers is working with the organisation to empower people with disabilities.

Modern slavery

The pandemic is likely to exacerbate the risk of modern slavery going unchecked. We maintain a zero-tolerance stance and are committed to ensuring we have practices in place to combat modern slavery and human trafficking.

We have participated in UK government assessments in 2017 and 2019, designed to help organisations identify areas for improving their practices. We have continued to develop our controls and will do so throughout 2021, in areas such as supplier and partner management, training, and risk management.

In accordance with Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and as part of our commitment to transparency, we have published our slavery and human trafficking statement for 2020 on our website.

To view our latest slavery and human trafficking statement, visit www.sightsavers.org/slavery-statement

Annual report 2020

Charity Commission serious incidents

In 2020, we reported five incidents that we believe met the conditions for what the Charity Commission considers to be serious incidents.

A safeguarding concern relating to a partner organisation in Tanzania. The partner was funded by a range of NGOs, so we formed a consortium to oversee the investigation of the allegations. The investigation is complete and discussions with the partner are ongoing.
A safeguarding concern relating to harassment within a third-party supplier of services to Sightsavers in India. The individual about whom the complaint was made has left that supplier.
A fire in a warehouse in Nigeria, which destroyed large quantities of donated drugs and equipment. The donated drugs were not our assets as they were owned by the ministry of health, but there was an adverse impact on our programme.
An incident concerning fraud, which was uncovered in one of our country offices, and the resulting disciplinary action.
We reported to the commission (and the Irish and UK Information Commissioners) that we were one of the organisations affected by the data breach at Blackbaud, our supporter database provider.

We supplied updates to the Charity Commission when requested to do so and have received notifications that they consider all of the above incidents closed to their satisfaction.

In all the above cases, our donors, along with the relevant authorities, were kept fully informed of the incidents and our responses.

Complaints and whistleblowing

A review completed in 2020 identified that we needed to increase our ability to monitor and manage feedback from staff, partners and communities about our operations and programmes. As a result, we launched the ‘Speak Up’ platform, which enables Sightsavers to receive and take action on complaints about our activities, as well as receive reports on wrongdoing by our staff. The system, available online and via phone, enables users to make complaints and receive feedback, and complements our existing whistleblowing channel and our safeguarding and fraud reporting mechanisms. We will continue to work with our partners to improve our ability to receive complaints in the communities in which we work.

To view the Speak Up platform, visit www.sightsavers.org/speakup

United Nations Global Compact

In December 2018, Sightsavers became a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact, supporting the 10 principles on human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. We are committed to embodying and embedding these principles within our organisation. We are pleased to confirm that we renewed our commitment to the United Nations Global Compact and published a communication of engagement in December 2020.

To view the UN communication of engagement, visit www.tinyurl.com/Sightsavers-UN

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Engineering student Nipa (left) with her mother Momotaz in Bangladesh. Nipa has a congenital disability that weakens one side of her body: Sightsavers’ Inclusion Works project is supporting her to find a job.

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Review of financial outcome 2020

Detailed financial information is reviewed by the Council in each of their meetings during the year. The financial outcome for 2020 is set out in the consolidated statement of financial activities.

In early 2020, we undertook a reforecasting exercise to assess the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the financial plan for 2020 changing significantly. Many of our programmes were suspended, which had an adverse effect on our charitable expenditures.

Income

Total income was £261.2 million in 2020, a decrease of £79.6 million compared with 2019, mainly reflecting a decrease in gift-inkind pharmaceutical donations from Merck in the form of Mectizan[®] tablets (2020: £154.7 million; 2019: £219.5 million). Delays in some of the programmes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a reduced number of shipments in the year, thereby causing a corresponding decrease in the value of donations compared to 2019.

Total income from donations and legacies was £62.6 million, a decrease of £0.3 million on 2019. 2020 income excluding giftin-kind donations was £106 million, an increase of £1.4 million (1%) from 2019, with a £16 million shortfall against our original financial plan for the year, reflecting lower-than-expected activity where income is recognised on a performance basis.

Overall income from individual donations increased by £2.8 million to £31.1 million, which, in aggregate across the group, was again above plan for the year. We maintained overall investment across all our international markets, while further optimising the investment mix. The majority of our well-established markets achieved increased individual income in 2020. The UK, our most significant market historically, achieved a 6% increase of £1.1 million, while Italy achieved an increase of £1.2 million (42%) compared with 2019, the biggest increase across the group.

Any effects from the pandemic aside, our longer-term expectations remain positive for most of our international territories, with the exception of Sweden, where the decision has been made to withdraw from new fundraising activities. The

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continuing generosity of our Swedish donors means that decision will remain under review in 2021.

Legacy income again performed well in 2020 at £12.5 million, an increase of 21%. The future legacy pipeline also appears strong.

Donations from trusts fell to £5.6 million in 2020, a decrease of 46% from £10.4 million in 2019. This is due to the phasing of very generous donation from the GiveWell Fund in the US, of £7.8 million in 2019 and £2.3 million in 2020. Corporate donations decreased to £4.9 million (2019: £5.8 million).

Donation income from institutional donors increased to £8.1 million in 2020, including a stable level of Irish Aid income (£1.6 million), and continuing support from a number of long-standing existing donors.

Total donation and legacy income decreased by £0.3 million to £62.6 million in 2020, comprising unrestricted income of £37.1 million and restricted income of £25.5 million (an increase of 19% and a decrease of 19% respectively).

Total gifts-in-kind income was £155.1 million, compared with £236.2 million in 2019. Income from gifts of Mectizan[®] tablets from Merck & Co Inc to treat river blindness was reduced because of pandemic, and we received no donations of Zithromax[®] . During the year, Sightsavers used significantly reduced air miles of 6,467,500 (2019: 40,171,250) for the purpose of 92 related flights (2019: 447), which were donated by Emirates. These have been valued at £43,000 (2019: £282,000)

(FCDO), formerly DFID, which covers a variety of programmes including the large neglected tropical disease projects, was £26.1 million, compared with £17.3 million in 2019.

The most significant institutional funding in 2020 was for the large integrated NTD programme, Ascend, for which we received income of £22.2 million from FCDO. This was a new programme in 2019, with initial funding that year of £9.0 million. In 2020 we again received charitable activity income from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation of £2.5 million, and also £0.1 million from USAID.

Investment income was £0.3 million in 2020.

Total income

£261.2 million

Our income from charitable activities increased by 4.4% to £43.1 million. Of this income, £14.0 million came from the Accelerate programme partners, a decrease of £3.1 million on 2019.

Our aggregate funding in this category directly from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Annual report 2020

Expenditure

Total expenditure was £250.4 million in 2020, a decrease of £81.7 million compared with 2019. These lower total expenditures principally reflect suspensions in our programmes portfolio due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and related lower distributions of pharmaceutical gifts in kind.

Costs of raising funds, including institutional fundraising costs, increased by £1.5 million year on year to £19.5 million. Both direct fundraising costs and allocated support costs increased proportionally in 2020. These expenditures continue to represent our strategy to invest effectively in voluntary fundraising income and donor recruitment, with the objective of balancing and complementing the levels of grant and contract income received in recent years. Direct expenditure and investments were broadly maintained across all major markets and channels, with results and performance being very resilient.

Total expenditure on charitable activities was £230.5 million in 2020, against £313.3 million in 2019.

Costs ascribed to both Mectizan[®] and Zithromax[®] tablets reduced accordingly against income, representing a combined £154.7 million of expenditures for donated drugs, an overall decrease of £81.1 million.

increased by £2.4 million to £10.1 million. These expenditure levels reflect a continuing commitment to direct costs across these thematic categories, together with a rebalancing of allocated support costs reflecting activity levels. NTD and social inclusion expenditures are the principal factors in increased underlying restricted funded charitable expenditures (exclusive of donated drug expenditures).

Overall, our charitable expenditures, including donated drugs, were £82.8 million lower in 2020, in line with the overall decrease in gifts in kind.

Total expenditure £250.4 million

Total expenditure on NTD programmes decreased marginally by £0.4 million, or 0.7%, represented in both restricted and unrestricted funded activities. Total expenditure on eye care health charitable activities decreased by £3.1 million, or 21%, and expenditures on social inclusion themes

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Grant-making policy

Sightsavers works in partnership with numerous organisations. Grants payable are made in line with the strategic objectives, and we monitor all grants to partner organisations in accordance with the relevant partnership agreement. There is an annual process to review the project and partner budgets for the following year and determine what funds will be paid.

A list of principal grants is available on our website: www.sightsavers.org/annual-reports

Financial position and reserves

The results for 2020 exceeded expectations, with an outturn overall surplus of net income of £9.4 million. After transfers between funds, which captures the benefit of indirect cost recovery on restricted grants and contracts, the outturn restricted funds net surplus was £1.5 million, with a surplus of £7.9 million for unrestricted funds. The principal factors in these results are levels of donation income above plan and controlled levels of expenditure below plan in response to the changes brought about by COVID-19.

Within net income, we incurred a gain of £0.1 million on the investment portfolio. There was an actuarial loss of £1.4 million related to the defined benefit pension scheme, reflecting historic low gilt and bond yields.

As at 31 December 2020 total fund balances were £40.7 million, comprising £25.6 million of total unrestricted funds, £0.2 million of endowment funds and £15.0 million of restricted funds. The component items of the restricted funds balance are shown in note 22: Statement of Funds (see page 126).

The liquidity reserve of £3.0 million, separate to general reserves and held within designated reserves, does not contribute to meeting the reserves target, and is formal recognition that the organisation requires operating liquidity to facilitate ongoing financial operations.

As at 31 December 2020, unrestricted funds comprised general reserves of £20.7 million and £4.9 million of designated funds. Of the designated funds, cash held overseas of £1.8 million is available for use.

Reserves policy is decided by the Council, taking into consideration, inter alia, relevant Charity Commission guidance. The policy seeks to balance the objective of promptly spending income with the need to maintain a level of reserves to ensure uninterrupted operations and to provide time to adjust to a change in financial circumstances and the financial impact of risk events.

The target unrestricted reserve level was increased in 2020 by £0.5 million to £8.0 million, with flexibility of +/- £1.5 million, which strikes a balance between the need to spend down income and maintaining operational integrity. This level of target reserves is consistent with Sightsavers’ size and operating model, in standard conditions.

As explained, during 2020, Sightsavers’ income-generating model has proved to be highly resilient, alongside experiencing a reduction in certain expenditures as a result of the pandemic. Our unrestricted general reserves have increased as noted to £20.7 million as at 31 December 2020, significantly above the top end of the target range.

Annual report 2020

Trustees are mindful that we continue to operate in unprecedented circumstances and uncertain conditions, including a global pandemic, post-Brexit headwinds, major changes in FCDO funding and exceptionally high levels of government borrowings, with attendant risks. Against such a backdrop, reserves as at 31 December 2020 cover approximately seven months of normal unrestricted expenditures. In determining a plan to align general reserves with the target there remain significant uncertainties, with high potential impact, which mean that we will be cautious in reducing down the current high levels reserves. As operational uncertainties arising from COVID-19 reduce, our ability to plan and commit expenditures with greater certainty will increase. Through 2021 general reserves are hence likely to continue to remain significantly above target while new programme expenditure comes on stream.

The trustees believe the current level of reserves is acceptable and prudent given the continuing economic and operational risks faced. The reserves policy is periodically reviewed to ensure that it remains appropriate as circumstances change.

Investments

Our investment activities are supported by UBS Wealth Management and the investment committee. This committee meets regularly with UBS to assess investment strategy and performance.

The value of assets held with our fund manager at 31 December 2020 was £6.8 million. We hold a mix of investment assets including cash, fixed income, equity, hedge funds and real estate. We are currently maintaining a tactical asset allocation preference for equities over bonds. Sightsavers’ level of fixed-asset investments is calibrated directly with the targeted quantum of reserves, with ongoing liquidity now more specifically addressed by the special designated liquidity reserve. The investment objectives are to maximise investment returns from a long-term discretionary portfolio, through both income and capital growth, at acceptable levels of risk, while maintaining good liquidity and in line with ethical standards consistent with our objects and values.

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Pensions

Sightsavers operates a defined contribution pension scheme, which was established in 2002, with membership made available to all UK contracted employees.

Sightsavers also operates a defined benefit pension scheme for UK contracted employees. This scheme was closed to new entrants in 2002 and closed to future accruals for existing employees in August 2010. As set out in note 12 to the financial statements, under FRS 102 there was a deficit in the scheme of £1.4 million at the end of 2020.

Sightsavers is operating a 10-year indexed deficit recovery contribution plan agreed with the trustees of the pension scheme, paying funding contributions of £360,000 per annum in real terms to the scheme, from 2016, through to the end of 2026. In 2020 this was indexed to £405,000. Contribution payments are subject to inflation indexation, set at 3% per annum.

The Investment Committee provides oversight on the management of this UK-defined benefit pension scheme, as a standing agenda item in meetings. Sightsavers’ finance director attends and participates in scheme trustee board meetings, receiving all meeting materials. Sightsavers engages its own professional advice in relation to the scheme.

Financial outlook

Sightsavers performed a strategy refresh project during 2019 and 2020, which assessed our progress over the past 10 years of strategy implementation. We looked at what could have been done better, calibrated where we stand as an organisation against evolving sector trends, and determined the implications going forward. The results of this work were presented to trustees in early 2020.

The review found there was no need for wholesale changes to the strategic framework. Work in 2020 continued to assist the evolution of that framework, including data analysis on programme achievements; a SIM card refresh; development of a forward programme strategy; and a review of thematic strategies.

Financial planning and forecasting activity takes place within the context of the overall strategic plan and objectives. Programme effectiveness is continually assessed and the portfolio mix of projects is expected to continue to evolve.

The pre-existing base 2021 financial plan is to run an overall deficit of approximately £6 million, reflecting projected income and expenditure levels, exclusive of gifts in kind, above 2020 outturn levels, anticipating the ramp up in funding and programme work under existing large grants and contracts following the temporary suspensions in 2020. Following the decision to end the Ascend NTD contract early, these levels of income and expenditure are now expected to be closer to 2020 levels.

This deficit reflects timing differences between prior cumulative income recognition and expenditure through to end 2020 on certain items of restricted income, principally the Good Venture Foundation (GiveWell) and People’s Postcode Lottery, which have fund balances brought forward within restricted funds at year end 2020.

Annual report 2020

Overall fundraising investment levels are planned to increase modestly in 2021, compared with 2020 expenditure outturn, as a part of the continuing strategy to strengthen the base of committed and ongoing givers across all fundraising markets.

While the economic and fundraising climate in the UK remains challenging, based on 2020 results we retain a positive outlook on this core market. We are also continuing our long-standing strategy of income diversification in international markets, including India, and continue to review our activities in Sweden.

We retain the ability to suspend, defer or cancel discretionary, variable fundraising expenditures if we so wish, as a decisionmaking tool to help ensure a robust financial position.

Our medium-term planning work factors in the risks of the purchasing power of sterling, which remains uncertain following Brexit and the economic effects on the UK of the virus crisis, albeit with potential upside, and we hold a level of reserves in order to mitigate this and other associated risks.

There are ongoing funding awards, and further potential funding opportunities, that are not included fully in the 2021 base plan figures. Our ongoing reforecasts aim to capture and use the best available forward financial information, which we expect will lead to changes in the rolling financial forecast for 2021, and in following years.

We have modelled forward-looking financial scenarios to test our resilience to the possibility of serious and long-lasting potential financial stress, which include assumptions regarding the potential financial impact of FCDO funding cuts and the early close of Ascend in 2020. Our financial position remains robust, as under the most adverse scenario we would end 2022 still exceeding our general reserves target level, with commensurate holdings of unrestricted cash.

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Case finder Lurwanu Umar (left) checks Sanusi’s eyes and records his data, as part of a campaign to find and treat patients with trachoma in Katsina, northern Nigeria.

Going concern

There is a reasonable expectation that Sightsavers has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Taking into consideration the strength of our financial modelling, as described in the section on financial outlook (page 83), we believe any continuing potential adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of Brexit and the uncertainty around FCDO funding are manageable. Taking account

of the level of reserves held, current and projected, the trustees believe that there are no material uncertainties that call into doubt the charity’s ability to continue. The financial statements have therefore been prepared on the basis that the charity is a going concern, as described in note 2 (see page 98).

Annual report 2020

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Key people and suppliers

Patron

Her Majesty the Queen

President

Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra, The Hon. Lady Ogilvy GCVO

Vice-presidents

Lady Wilson OBE Sir David Thompson KCMG Sir Graham Burton KCMG Lord Nigel Crisp KCB Dr Ramachandra Pararajasegaram (deceased May 2020)

Martin Dinham CBE

Dr Uche Amazigo (appointed July 2020)

Honorary officers

Sir Clive Jones GCMG CBE, Chairman Christopher Kinder, Vice-chairman Bill Kendall, Treasurer

Members of the Council (trustees)

Ms Abia Akram

Dr Uche Amazigo (stepped down July 2020) Ms Maryanne Diamond Barry Hoffman Ms Joy Hutcheon Sir Clive Jones GCMG CBE Bill Kendall

Christopher Kinder Ms Elaine Lee Jim Miley Ms Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi Dr Manoj Parulekar Prof Tuwani Rasengane David Louis Taylor Prof Chris Whitty

The committees

Audit committee Christopher Kinder, Chair Bill Kendall Prof Tuwani Rasengane David Louis Taylor Richard Ufland (Co-opted member) Governance committee Sir Clive Jones, Chair Christopher Kinder, Vice-Chair Barry Hoffman Bill Kendall Investment committee Bill Kendall, Chair Sir Clive Jones Christopher Kinder Remuneration committee Sir Clive Jones, Chair Barry Hoffman Bill Kendall Christopher Kinder

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Strategy steering group

Dr Caroline Harper, CBE, Chair Chief Executive Officer

Simon Bush

Director of Neglected Tropical Diseases

Alicia Cummins Director of Policy and Programme Strategy and Planning

Dominic Haslam Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Imran Khan Director of Programme Strategy and Development

Kenneth Moon Chief Operating Officer

Ella Pierce Director of Fundraising and Marketing

Gareth Roberts Planning, Monitoring and Reporting Director

Senior management team

Thomas Millar

Neglected Tropical Diseases Operations Director

RN Mohanty Chief Executive, India

John Muriuki

Regional Director, East Central and Southern Africa

Feargal O’Connell Chief Executive, Ireland

Ella Pierce Director of Fundraising and Marketing

Mark Ramsden

Director of Governance, Legal and Assurance

Gareth Roberts Planning, Monitoring and Reporting Director

Elena Schmidt Director of Evidence, Research and Innovations

Kenneth Moon, Chair Chief Operating Officer

Anna Becker Director of Institutional Funding

Andy Boetius Finance Director

Alicia Cummins Director of Policy and Programme Strategy and Planning

Fatoumata Diouf Regional Director, West Africa

Dr Caroline Harper CBE Chief Executive Officer

Dominic Haslam

Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Natasha Kennedy Director of Campaigns and Communications

Imran Khan

Director of Programme Strategy and Development

Juilet Milgate Director of Policy and Global Advocacy

Annual report 2020

Registered address

35 Perrymount Road Haywards Heath West Sussex RH16 3BW

Solicitors

Bates, Wells & Braithwaite Cheapside House 138 Cheapside London EC2V 6BB

Principal bankers

HSBC Bank plc Sussex and Surrey Corporate Centre First Point, Buckingham Gate London Gatwick Airport West Sussex RH6 0NT

Standard Chartered Bank 1 Basinghall Avenue London EC2V 5DD

Allied Irish Bank 7/12 Dame Street Dublin 2 D02 KX20

Correspondence address

Bumpers Way, Bumpers Farm Chippenham SN14 6NG

Investment managers

UBS AG 5 Broadgate London EC2M 2QS

Independent auditors

Crowe U.K. LLP 55 Ludgate Hill London EC4M 7JW

Independent auditors

A resolution that Crowe U.K. LLP be appointed as the independent auditor to Sightsavers will be proposed at the forthcoming annual general meeting. Approved by the trustees and signed on their behalf on:

Sir Clive Jones Chair

Date: 15 July 2021

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Independent Auditor’s Report to the Trustees of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (‘the charity’) and its subsidiaries (‘the group’) for the year ended 31 December 2020 which comprise the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities, the Group and Charity Balance Sheets, the Consolidated Cash Flow Statement and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

give a true and fair view of the state of the group’s and the parent charity’s affairs as at 31 December 2020 and of the group’s income and expenditure, for the year then ended;
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and
have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 and the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and Regulations 6 and 8 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (amended).

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the group in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charity’s or the group’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Annual report 2020

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. The other information comprises the information included in the annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

the information given in the financial statements is inconsistent in any material respect with the trustees’ report; or
sufficient and proper accounting records have not been kept by the parent charity or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or
the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the group and the parent charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

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Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditor under section 151 of the Charities Act 2011, and section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and report in accordance with the Acts and relevant regulations made or having effect thereunder.

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Details of the extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud and noncompliance with laws and regulations are set out below.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements can be found on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities

This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We identified and assessed the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements from irregularities, whether due to fraud or error, and discussed these between our audit team members including significant component audit teams. We then designed and performed audit procedures responsive to those risks, including obtaining audit evidence sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks within which the charity and group operates, focusing on those laws and regulations that have a direct effect on the determination of material amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The laws and regulations we considered in this context were the Charities Act 2011 and The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, together with the Charities SORP (FRS 102). We assessed the required compliance with these laws and regulations as part of our audit procedures on the related financial statement items.

In addition, we considered provisions of other laws and regulations that do not have a direct effect on the financial statements but compliance with which might be fundamental to the charity’s and the group’s ability to operate or to avoid a material penalty. We also considered the opportunities and incentives that may exist within the charity and the group for fraud. The laws and regulations we considered in this context for the UK operations were General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), anti-fraud, bribery and corruption legislation, taxation legislation and employment legislation. We also considered compliance with local legislation for the group’s overseas operating segments.

Annual report 2020

Auditing standards limit the required audit procedures to identify non-compliance with these laws and regulations to enquiry of the trustees and other management and inspection of regulatory and legal correspondence, if any.

We identified the greatest risk of material impact on the financial statements from irregularities, including fraud, to be within the timing of recognition of grant and contract income and major donations, end use of funds including funds granted to partner organisations and the override of controls by management. Our audit procedures to respond to these risks included enquiries of management, internal audit and the Audit Committee about their own identification and assessment of the risks of irregularities, testing of a sample of grant, contract and major donation income against the terms of the funding agreements and the requirement of the Charities SORP (FRS102), sample testing on the posting of journals, reviewing accounting estimates for biases, reviewing regulatory correspondence with the Charity Commission and reading minutes of meetings of those charged with governance.

Owing to the inherent limitations of an audit, there is an unavoidable risk that we may not have detected some material misstatements in the financial statements, even though we have properly planned and performed our audit in accordance with auditing standards. For example, the further removed non-compliance with laws and regulations (irregularities) is from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, the less likely the inherently limited procedures required by auditing standards would identify it. In addition, as with any audit, there remained a higher risk of non-detection of irregularities, as these may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal controls. We are not responsible for preventing non-compliance and cannot be expected to detect noncompliance with all laws and regulations.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with Part 4 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and Regulation 10 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charity’s trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Signature:

Date: 16 July 2021 For and on behalf of Crowe U.K. LLP Statutory Auditor London

Crowe U.K. LLP is eligible for appointment as auditor of the charity by virtue of its eligibility for appointment as auditor of a company under section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006.

Crowe U.K. LLP is eligible for appointment as auditor of the charity under regulation 10(2) of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations by virtue of its eligibility under section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006.

www.sightsavers.org

Indu, 21, from Bihar in India, learned to make bangles as part of an initiative to empower people with disabilities so they can earn a living.

Annual report 2020

Consolidated statement of financial activities Year ended 31 December 2020

----- Start of picture text -----
Unrestricted Restricted Total Unrestricted Restricted Total
funds 2020 funds 2020 2020 funds 2019 funds 2019 2019
Note £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Income and endowments from:
Donations and legacies 3 37,054 25,536 62,590 31,128 31,727 62,855
Gifts in kind 4 446 154,699 155,145 465 235,760 236,225
Charitable activities 5 - 43,088 43,088 - 41,279 41,279
Investments 6 292 - 292 453 - 453
Other 7 106 - 106 65 - 65
Total income and endowments 37,898 223,323 261,221 32,111 308,766 340,877
Expenditure on:
Raising funds 9 18,239 1,287 19,526 18,061 - 18,061
Charitable activities
Health: eye care 8,9 3,576 7,939 11,515 2,521 12,109 14,630
Neglected tropical diseases 8,9 3,578 44,200 47,778 5,985 42,143 48,128
- -
Gift-in-kind drug donation 8,9 154,699 154,699 235,760 235,760
Education 8,9 1,324 1,812 3,136 951 2,952 3,903
Social inclusion 8,9 2,055 8,077 10,132 1,732 5,960 7,692
Policy and research 8,9 2,938 262 3,200 3,176 - 3,176
Total charitable activities 8,9 13,471 216,989 230,460 14,365 298,924 313,289
Other 9 419 - 419 755 - 755
Total expenditure 32,129 218,276 250,405 33,181 298,924 332,105
Operating (deficit) / surplus 5,769 5,047 10,816 (1,070) 9,842 8,772
Gains / (losses) on investments 16 7 - 7 632 - 632
Net income / (expenditure) 5,776 5,047 10,823 (438) 9,842 9,404
Transfer between funds 22 3,555 (3,555) - 2,228 (2,228) -
Net income / (expenditure)
before other recognised
gains / (losses) 9,331 1,492 10,823 1,790 7,614 9,404
Actuarial gains / (losses) on
defined benefit pension scheme 12 (1,409) - (1,409) (678) - (678)
Net movement in funds 7,922 1,492 9,414 1,112 7,614 8,726
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought forward 17,643 13,680 31,323 16,531 6,066 22,597
Total funds carried forward 22 25,565 15,172 40,737 17,643 13,680 31,323
----- End of picture text -----

Restricted funds include endowment funds, which had a balance as at 31 December 2020 of £214,000 (2019: £214,000). See note 22 for further information. All incoming and outgoing resources arise from continuing activities. All gains and losses recognised in the year are included above.

www.sightsavers.org

Consolidated and charity balance sheet 31 December 2020

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Charity
2020 2019 2020 2019
Note £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Fixed assets
Tangible assets 15 73 47 73 47
Investments 16 6,718 6,752 6,718 6,752
Total fixed assets 6,791 6,799 6,791 6,799
Current assets
Debtors 17 3,887 4,992 8,652 11,217
Cash at bank and in hand 18 51,279 34,791 43,091 24,483
Total current assets 55,166 39,783 51,743 35,700
Liabilities
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 19 18,965 14,177 17,560 10,876
Net current assets 36,201 25,606 34,183 24,824
Total assets less current liabilities 42,992 32,405 40,974 31,623
Creditors: amounts falling due after more than
one year 19 - - - -
Provision for other liabilities 20 877 712 871 705
Net assets excluding pension (liability) 42,115 31,693 40,103 30,918
Defined benefit pension scheme (liability) 12 (1,378) (370) (1,378) (370)
Total net assets 40,737 31,323 38,725 30,548
The funds of the charity:
Unrestricted funds
Free reserve 22,23 22,040 13,819 27,480 13,129
Pension reserve 12,22,23 (1,378) (370) (1,378) (370)
General 22,23 20,662 13,449 26,102 12,759
Designated 22,23 4,903 4,194 4,903 4,194
Total unrestricted funds 25,565 17,643 31,005 16,953
Restricted funds 22,23 14,958 13,466 7,506 13,381
Endowment funds 22,23 214 214 214 214
Total funds 40,737 31,323 38,725 30,548
----- End of picture text -----

The net movement in funds for the financial year dealt with in the financial statements of the parent charity was £9,202,000 (2019: £9,328,000). The trustees have prepared group accounts in accordance with section 138 of the Charities Act 2011. The notes on pages 98 to 133 form part of these financial statements.

These financial statements were approved by the Council on 15 July 2021 and signed on their behalf by:

Chair

Hon. Treasurer

Annual report 2020

Consolidated statement of cash flows Year ended 31 December 2020

----- Start of picture text -----
2020 2019
Note £’000 £’000
Net income / (expenditure) for the reporting period
(as per the statement of financial activities) 9,414 8,726
Adjustments for:
Depreciation charges 15 175 740
Gains on investments 16 (124) (522)
Investment income 6 (292) (453)
Exchange rate (gain) / loss 9 (392) (697)
(Profit) on sale of fixed assets 7 106 65
Increase in provisions 20 165 21
(Increase) / decrease in debtors 17 1,105 (621)
Increase in creditors 19 2,903 4,331
Increase in defined benefit pension liabilities 12 1,008 250
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities 14,068 11,840
Cash flows from investing activities:
Payments to acquire tangible fixed assets 15 (201) (778)
Payments to acquire investments 16 (3,278) (2,018)
Receipts from sale of fixed assets 7 (106) (65)
Receipts from sale of investments 16 3,357 1,987
(Increase) / decrease in cash held for investment 16 79 (60)
Investment income 6 292 453
Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities 143 (481)
Cash flows from financing activities:
- -
Repayment of borrowing
- -
Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities
Change in cash and cash equivalents 14,211 11,359
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year 34,791 22,495
Exchange gains / (losses) on cash equivalents 392 697
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year 49,394 34,551
Cash and cash equivalents consist of:
Cash in hand 51,279 34,791
- -
Notice deposits (less than 3 months)
Overdraft facility repayable on demand (1,885) (240)
Total cash and cash equivalents 49,394 34,551
----- End of picture text -----

www.sightsavers.org

Analysis of changes in net cash / (debt)

	At start of year	Cashflows	Foreign exchange	At end of year
	£’000	£’000	movements	£’000
			£’000
Cash	34,791	16,096	392	51,279
Cash equivalents Overdraft facility repayable on demand Loans falling due within one year Loans falling due after more than one year Finance lease obligations	- (240) - - -	- (1,645) - - -	- - - - -	- (1,885) - - -
Total	34,551	14,451	392	49,394

In Mali, teacher Chaka Tangara helps 15-year-old Alfousseini, who is blind, with biology. The teaching materials were developed through Sightsavers’ inclusive education project.

Annual report 2020

Notes to the financial statements Year ended 31 December 2020

1 Charity information

The Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, trading as Sightsavers, is a registered charity (No. 207544 and SCO38110), which is incorporated and domiciled in the UK. The address of the registered office is 35 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3BW, UK.

2 Accounting policies

Basis of accounting

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention, modified by the inclusion of investments at market value, and in accordance with applicable United Kingdom accounting standards. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) effective 1 January 2019 and the Charities Act 2011 and UK Generally Accepted Practice as it applies from 1 January 2015. The accounting policies have been applied consistently throughout the current and previous year.

The trustees’ report includes a review of financial performance and the charity’s reserves position (page 81). Sightsavers has adequate financial resources and is well placed to manage the business risks. The planning process, including financial projections, has taken into consideration the current economic climate and its potential impact on the various sources of income and planned expenditure. There is a reasonable expectation that Sightsavers has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. The trustees believe that there are no material uncertainties that call into doubt

the charity’s ability to continue. The financial statements have therefore been prepared on the basis that the charity is a going concern.

Sightsavers meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102.

Basis of consolidation

The financial statements consolidate the results of the charity and its subsidiary undertakings on a line-by-line basis. A separate Statement of Financial Activities (SOFA) has not been presented for the charity alone, which is consistent with previous years. The net result for the charity (which includes all its branches) is a surplus of £9,202,000, which comprises income of £86,852,000, expenditure of £77,657,000 and a gain on investment of £7,000 (2019 gain of £632,000). Sightsavers has the following subsidiary undertakings for which group accounts have been prepared. These all undertake fundraising activity in their local jurisdictions.

Sightsavers (Trading) Limited is a UK registered company (No: 2464229). Control is established by virtue of the charity owning 100 per cent of the issued share capital of the organisation.

Sightsavers International Inc. is registered in the USA, incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware (federal ID: 311740776). The charity has the right to appoint all directors of the organisation.

www.sightsavers.org

Sightsavers Inc. is registered in the USA, incorporated under the laws of the State of Missouri (federal ID: 47-4657747). There is a collaboration agreement between the organisations.

Sightsavers (Ireland) is registered in Ireland (company number: 377692, charity number: CHY15437). The charity appoints two directors to the board of the organisation and there is a management contract in place between the organisations.

Sightsavers International Italia (Onlus No: 97653640017) is registered in Italy as an Onlus non-profit, non-stock corporation. The majority of the board of the entity are trustees or senior management of the charity. The charity and subsidiary are managed on a unified basis.

Insamlingsstiftelsen Sightsavers International (Sverige) is registered in Sweden (company number: 802477-8188, charity number: 90 03 63-3). The charity, as founder, has the right to appoint the board in the governing document.

Stiftelsen Sightsavers International Norge is registered in Norway (No: 912 388 573). The charity, as founder, has the right to appoint the board in the governing document.

Fund accounting

General funds are unrestricted funds available for use at the discretion of the trustees to further the general objectives of Sightsavers that have not been designated for other purposes.

Designated funds comprise unrestricted funds that have been set aside by the trustees for particular purposes. The use of each designated fund is set out in note 22.

Restricted funds are funds which are to be used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by donors or which have been raised by the charity for particular purposes. Details of restricted funds are set out in note 22.

Endowment funds comprise monies that must be held indefinitely as capital. Related income is credited to general funds and applied for general purposes unless under the terms of the endowment such income must be used for specific purposes in which case it is credited to restricted funds.

Income

Income is recognised when Sightsavers is entitled to the income, any performance conditions attached to the income have been met, it is probable that the income will be received, and the amount can be measured reliably.

Charitable activities performance-related conditions: Some funding agreements specify the services to be performed by Sightsavers for receiving the funds. Where this is the case, Sightsavers becomes entitled to the funds as it earns the right to consideration by its performance. When cash is received in advance of entitlement, income is deferred and included in creditors. Where entitlement occurs before cash being received, the income is accrued.

The following specific policies apply to categories of income:

Legacies are recognised at the earlier of estate accounts being finalised and Sightsavers being notified that a payment will be made;
Gifts in kind in the form of Mectizan[®] and Zithromax[®] tablets are included in the SOFA at the donor’s wholesale price or equivalent at the date the tablets are recorded as being received overseas for use. These amounts will vary each year based on the donor’s distribution plans; and
Other gifts in kind are included at the value to the charity and are recognised as income when utilised.

Annual report 2020

Expenditure

Expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to make a payment to a third party, it is probable that settlement will be required and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. All expenditure is inclusive of irrecoverable VAT where applicable. Expenditure is classified into the following categories:

Costs of raising funds are those incurred in seeking voluntary and grant income, trading activities and investment management. They do not include the costs of disseminating information in support of charitable activities; and
Expenditure on charitable activities is reported as an analysis between the different thematic aims of the organisation, being health, neglected tropical diseases, education and social inclusion. The amount spent on policy and research activities is also reported.

Amounts payable to partners for overseas projects are charged when an obligation exists and are described as grants payable in note 9. These payments are made under standard partner agreements, which include an agreed project budget, in response to payment requests made by the partner. These requests are reviewed and approved on an individual basis and the obligation to pay exists and is generally recognised as a partner payable, as opposed to an accrual, once the payment request has been approved.

Employee benefits include all costs incurred by the charity in exchange for the services of its employees. Expenditure is recognised for all employee benefits resulting from their service to Sightsavers during the reporting period. A liability is recognised for the cost of all benefits to which employees are entitled at the reporting date that have yet to be paid.

Redundancy costs (termination benefits) are recognised as an immediate cost and charged to the SOFA on a demonstrable commitment to termination, with provision for future redundancy costs measured at a best estimate of the expenditure that would be required to settle the obligation at the reporting date.

Expenditure includes gifts in kind which are valued and recognised on the same basis as gifts in kind shown as income.

Allocation of support costs

Support costs include the central and regional office functions such as general management, payroll administration, budgeting, forecasting and accounting, information technology, human resources and facilities management. These are allocated across the categories of expenditure outlined above. The basis of the cost allocation is explained in note 9.

Operating leases

Rentals payable under operating leases are charged to the SOFA on a straight line basis over the most likely term of the lease.

Finance leases

Leases are accounted for as finance leases when substantially all the risk and rewards relating to the leased property transfer to Sightsavers. The asset is recognised as a tangible fixed asset. Rentals payable are apportioned between:

a charge for the acquisition of the interest in the property (recognised as a liability in the balance sheet at the start of the lease, matched with a tangible fixed asset). The liability is written down as the rent becomes payable; and
a finance charge (charged to the SOFA as the rent becomes payable).

Fixed assets recognised under finance leases are accounted for using the policies applied generally to tangible fixed assets.

100

www.sightsavers.org

Tangible fixed assets

Individual tangible fixed assets costing £5,000 or more are capitalised at cost. Depreciation is provided on all tangible fixed assets, excluding freehold land, at rates calculated to write off the cost or valuation of each asset on a straight-line basis over their expected useful economic lives as set out below.

----- Start of picture text -----
Tangible fixed asset Depreciation
Freehold buildings 2% to 4%
Computer equipment 33%
Motor vehicles held 100%
overseas
Fittings and office 25%
equipment
Leasehold To the date of
improvements the next lease
break point
----- End of picture text -----

Investments

Investments are initially measured at cost and subsequently at market value at the balance sheet date. The SOFA includes the net gains and losses arising from disposals and revaluations throughout the year.

Debtors

Debtors are measured in the accounts at their recoverable amount.

Creditors

Creditors are measured in the accounts at their settlement amount.

Forward exchange contracts

Sightsavers has entered into forward exchange contracts during the year to hedge forward currency exposure on near-term future programme expenditure. Forward currency exchanges made under these contracts are recorded at the specified rate at the time of the transaction.

At the end of each reporting period, each contract is revalued based on the rate of exchange ruling at the balance sheet date. An asset or liability is recorded and the gain or loss is reported in the SOFA.

Financial instruments

Sightsavers also has financial assets and liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at their settlement value.

Investments held as part of an investment portfolio are held at fair value at the balance sheet date, with gains and losses being recognised in the SOFA. Investments in subsidiary undertakings are held at cost less impairment.

Provisions

Provisions are recognised when the charity has a present legal or constructive obligation as a result of past events; it is probable that an outflow of resources will be required to settle the obligation and the amount can be estimated reliably.

Provisions are measured at the present value of the expenditure expected to be required to settle the obligation. The increase in the provision due to passage of time is recognised as a finance cost.

101

Annual report 2020

Pension

Sightsavers operates a defined benefit pension scheme for its eligible UK contracted employees. This scheme was closed to new members in September 2002 and to future accruals in August 2010. The pension costs and the pension provision for the defined benefit scheme are calculated on the basis of actuarial advice and are charged to the SOFA in accordance with the requirements of FRS 102.

Sightsavers also operates a defined contribution scheme for eligible UK contracted employees. Pension costs for the defined contribution scheme are charged to the accounts as they are accrued.

A pensions reserve has been created within unrestricted funds in compliance with paragraph 10.93 of the Charities SORP (FRS 102). Details of the pension schemes are disclosed in note 12.

For staff based overseas, Sightsavers contributes to locally managed provident fund schemes and a centrally managed end-of-service benefit scheme based on the number of years’ service completed, in line with local employment laws. Any benefit accrued but not paid at the year-end is recorded as a liability.

All pension costs are allocated between activities and between restricted and unrestricted funds on the basis of the time spent.

Foreign exchange

Assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies have been translated at the rate of exchange ruling at the balance sheet date. Exchange differences are recognised within net income / (expenditure).

Income and expenditure transactions incurred in a foreign currency have been translated during the course of the year at the rate of exchange ruling at the date of the transaction and are disclosed in the SOFA.

Functional / presentation currency

The functional currency of the charity and its subsidiaries is considered to be pound sterling because that is the currency of the primary economic environment in which Sightsavers operates. The consolidated financial statements are also presented in pound sterling and rounded to the nearest thousand.

Critical accounting judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty

In the application of the charity’s accounting policies, trustees are required to make judgements, estimates, assumptions about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and underlying assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects the current and future periods.

The key sources of estimation uncertainty that have an effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements are described in the accounting policies and are summarised below:

Pension liabilities: the charity recognises its liability to its defined benefit pension scheme which involves a number of estimates as disclosed in note 12; and
Provisions for liabilities: the charity has provided for its possible liabilities in relation to its leasehold property and employees which have been estimated as disclosed in note 20.

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Going concern

As at the date of signature of this report, the world continues to be significantly affected by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Some countries are beginning to take steps out of lockdowns, but uncertainty remains. Aside from the public health questions, the full impact on economies across the world is not fully known. It is unclear how deep the recession will be or how long it will take to recover from.

The trustees of Sightsavers receive forecasts and financial projections that detail variations in the level and timing of future income and funding, and have considered the short- and longer-term financial projections and other risks that may affect Sightsavers. They have considered the key risks that could negatively impact the going concern of Sightsavers and have considered budgets and forecasts, cashflow projections and contingency and recovery plans. Sightsavers ended 2020 significantly financially stronger than it started the year.

To mitigate these risks, Sightsavers has undertaken activities to maximise its resilience during the continuing pandemic:

a. A comprehensive risk log tailored to COVID-19 has been created, including mitigation strategies that are regularly reviewed.
b. A business continuity team has been created to ensure we can continue to function properly while offices are closed and during recovery phases.
c. A dynamic and flexible monitoring system has been created for our programmes so we are able to monitor activities more frequently, and the financial impacts arising, as required.
e. Our voluntary fundraising has continued successfully with an emphasis on TV advertising and digital activity, in major European markets.
f. We continue to keep a close eye on costs, including having deferred some staff recruitment, furloughed a handful of staff, and noting certain costs are lower if programmes are suspended and international travel remains impossible.
g. We have maintained a sharp focus on liquidity, monitoring our cashflow and cash position continuously. We are confident that the combination of the reserves we carry, the funding donors are continuing to provide, and our existing borrowing facilities will enable us to manage cashflow volatility through the forward period.
h. We continue to undertake scenario planning looking at a range of customised financial scenarios, including quite pessimistic assumptions. We are confident that Sightsavers is financially robust even under any realistic most negative scenario.
i. We continue to perform monthly organisation-wide financial reforecasting, which inform understanding of decision making in response to the financial impacts of the pandemic and other factors.

After considering these factors, the trustees have concluded that Sightsavers has a reasonable expectation that there are adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future and have continued to prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis.

d. A comprehensive ongoing engagement plan continues with all institutional and major donors.

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Annual report 2020

3 Donations and legacies

----- Start of picture text -----
2020 2019
£’000 £’000
Individuals
UK 19,762 18,609
Ireland 4,047 3,136
Italy 4,179 2,940
India 2,057 2,424
Other 1,103 1,143
Total from individuals 31,148 28,252
Legacies 12,542 10,332
Government, NGO and institutional donors 8,154 7,837
Companies 4,949 5,828
Trusts 5,621 10,358
Community service and other organisations 176 248
Total 62,590 62,855
Donations, excluding legacies, above £100,000 included within the above:
Government, NGO and institutional donors:
FCDO UK Aid Connect Inclusion Works 3,138 2,482
Irish Aid 1,611 1,543
FCDO UK Aid Match 1,297 911
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation 429 858
The END Fund 338 571
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 218 306
Fred Hollows Foundation 130 192
States of Jersey 103 273
National Lottery Fund 92 195
Task Force for Global Health - 548
Companies:
People’s Postcode Lottery 2,588 2,889
Standard Chartered Seeing is Believing 605 860
Dubai Cares 304 203
Cholamandalam Business Services 245 301
L’Occitane Foundation 134 120
Dubai Duty Free 111 120
Unilever 25 114
Rama Prasar Group (RPG) 24 121
HCL Technologies 122 144
----- End of picture text -----

104

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----- Start of picture text -----
2020 2019
£’000 £’000
Trusts:
GiveWell Fund: Good Ventures Foundation 2,074 7,624
GiveWell Fund: The ClearFund 238 124
DAK Foundation 129 -
Jersey Overseas Aid 103 273
Arcadia - 768
Zochonis Trust 99 112
Latter Day Saints - 170
An Anonymous Foundation 1,181 261
----- End of picture text -----

As at 31 December 2020, in addition to legacy income that has been included in the accounts, Sightsavers is expected to benefit from a number of legacies from estates for which the administration has yet to be finalised or Sightsavers notified that a payment will be made. Sightsavers’ future income from these legacies is estimated at £17,014,000 (2019: estimated at £11,941,000).

In addition, Sightsavers is the future beneficiary of legacy assets transferred to and held in trust, with an estimated value of £2,288,000 (2019: £2,292,000).

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Annual report 2020

4 Gifts in kind

In 2020, Sightsavers International Inc. secured gift-in-kind donations valued at £154,699,000 (2019: £219,451,000) from Merck Inc. in the form of Mectizan[®] tablets, which have been shipped to Benin, Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Guinea Bissau and Togo. Delays in some of the programmes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a reduced number of shipments in the year and thereby caused a corresponding decrease in the value of donations compared to 2019.

Sightsavers is responsible for the coordination of Mectizan[®] tablet distribution to people at risk of developing river blindness. The gift-in-kind donations received reflects the approximate value of tablets distributed through the Sightsavers coordination work. Sightsavers works in collaboration with a small number of other agencies to ensure the responsibilities for coordination are most effectively undertaken.

In 2020 Sightsavers received no shipments of the drug Zithromax[®] from the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI), an organisation founded by Pfizer (2019: £16,309,000). ITI only approves supplies of the drugs when there is evidence of funding for project implementation and drug distribution. Sightsavers’ Sudan country office had no funding for 2020 and therefore there was no shipment.

Sightsavers’ Sudan county office is the named consignee on the shipments from ITI and takes receipt and title to shipments of Zithromax[®] , with swift onward distribution and transfer to government and ministry supply chains in Khartoum for use in programme activity. Sightsavers’ entitlement to the receipt is by an equivalent form of management control to that exercised for Mectizan[®] .

During the year, Sightsavers utilised 6,467,500 air miles (2019: 40,171,250) for the purpose of 92 related flights (2019: 447), which were donated by Emirates. These have been valued at £43,000 (2019: £282,000) based on the lowest economy fare available at the time of travel. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a halt to international travel during 2020.

Google Grants is a unique gift-in-kind donation programme that awards free AdWords advertising to selected charitable organisations. It supports organisations that share Google’s philosophy of community service to help the world in areas such as science and technology, education, global public health, the environment, youth advocacy and the arts. During the year Sightsavers secured donations valued at £403,000 (2019: £183,000).

In 2020, Sightsavers benefited from the contribution of unpaid volunteers. The activities carried out by these volunteers, predominantly interactions with schools and community groups, have not been included in the accounts in accordance with the SORP, due to the absence of any reliable measurement basis.

----- Start of picture text -----
Gifts in kind 2020 2019
£’000 £’000
Mectizan [®] 154,699 219,451
Zithromax [®] 0 16,309
Drug donation 154,699 235,760
sub-total
Emirates air miles 43 282
Google AdWords 403 183
Total gifts 155,145 236,225
in kind
----- End of picture text -----

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5 Income from charitable activities

----- Start of picture text -----
2020 2019
£’000 £’000
Accelerate Partners 9,294 8,278
FCDO Commonwealth 4,664 8,763
13,958 17,041
FCDO Aid Match - 1,055
FCDO UK Aid Match Oncho / LF 5 -
-
FCDO Nigeria NTD 1,150
FCDO SAFE - 4,156
FCDO DID 3,900 1,968
FCDO Ascend 22,232 8,958
European Commission 134 398
The Gates Foundation 2,505 2,405
-
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust 3,902
USAID (through HKI, JSI and RTI) 149 145
Helen Keller International 191 85
RTI International 14 16
Total 43,088 41,279
----- End of picture text -----

Further information on each of these income sources is provided in note 22.

6 Investment income

6Investment income
	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Dividends from investments	150	168
Bank deposit interest	142	285
Total	292	453

7 Other income

7Other income
	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Profit on disposal of fixed assets	106	65
Total	106	65

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Annual report 2020

8 Charitable activities

----- Start of picture text -----
Neglected Gift-
Health tropical in-kind Social Policy and
eye care diseases drugs Education inclusion research 2020 2019
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Benin - 536 - - - - 536 510
Burkina Faso - 263 - - - - 263 409
Cameroon - 1,720 - 157 142 - 2,019 2,042
Côte d’Ivoire - 698 - - - - 698 874
Ghana - 756 - - - - 756 587
Guinea 33 1,308 - 2 - - 1,343 613
Guinea Bissau - 532 - - - - 532 403
Kenya - 966 - 96 355 - 1,417 1,484
Liberia 366 481 - 238 - - 1,085 1,117
Malawi 442 33 - 184 - - 659 769
Mali 157 513 - 212 - - 882 941
Mozambique 522 33 - - - - 555 983
Nigeria 278 4,866 - - 294 - 5,438 5,634
Senegal 298 553 - 168 123 - 1,142 1,361
Sierra Leone 335 803 - 108 - - 1,246 1,278
Sudan - 141 - - - - 141 168
South Sudan - 127 - - - - 127 193
Tanzania 659 680 - - - - 1,339 1,468
The Gambia - 3 - - - - 3 56
Togo - 81 - - - - 81 143
Uganda 384 85 - 104 374 - 947 1,620
Zambia 267 - - - - - 267 765
Zimbabwe 15 934 - - - - 949 1,006
East Central Southern Africa
(ECSA) Regional Office 54 96 - 7 11 - 168 342
West Africa Regional Office 13 88 - 4 6 - 111 257
Africa Finance Office 57 313 - 20 20 - 410 -
Sub-total Africa 3,880 16,609 - 1,300 1,325 - 23,114 25,023
India 2,498 - - 269 458 - 3,225 4,297
India Regional Office 414 - - 40 98 23 575 670
Sub-total India 2,912 - - 309 556 23 3,800 4,967
Bangladesh 1,011 - - - 169 - 1,180 1,405
Pakistan 893 153 - 119 - - 1,165 1,308
Sub-total South Asia 1,904 153 - 119 169 - 2,345 2,713
----- End of picture text -----

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		Neglected	Gift-
	Health	tropical	in-kind		Social	Policy and
	eye care	diseases	drugs	Education	inclusion	research	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Global programmes	-	22,299	-	-	5,741	-	28,040	26,116
Gifts in kind Central support functions Programme technical support Advocacy and policy support Direct charitable expenditure	30 1,235 1,378 176 11,515	- 1,795 4,918 2,004 47,778	154,699 - - - 154,699	- 408 893 107 3,136	- 712 1,158 471 10,132	- 897 1,015 1,265 3,200	154,729 5,047 9,362 4,023 230,460	236,012 5,534 9,237 3,687 313,289

Our income from our charitable activities arises from activities across our programme portfolio, described on page 12. The main programme categories and activities are as follows:

10. Eye health: our programmes cover various service interventions, with cataracts being a particular focus, and we focus on various aspects of eye health system strengthening programmes.

11. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs): during 2020 we continued to work on our key large NTD programmes: the Accelerate programme (eliminating trachoma in 10 African countries and making significant progress towards elimination in another three); the Ascend programme (significant contribution to the control and elimination of the five PC NTDs, health systems strengthening, and cross-sector collaboration, particularly WASH and education, across 13 countries in Western and Central Africa); and our GiveWell programmes. With the approval of the donor, FCDO, there was some successfully repurposing of funds to support gaps in the COVID-19 response in the Ascend countries, including aspects such as strengthening gaps in health systems and ensuring ‘no-one was left behind’. Alongside this activity, a risk assessment process was developed, approved by FCDO, and adopted to ensure that the core NTD delivery could restart safely. This new tool has been used by other organisations globally.

12. Education: examples of our education programmes include developing teaching and college systems and access to them, and developing community-based education centres.

13. Social inclusion: our programmes look to improve economic empowerment and political participation, with a particular focus on gender and advocacy. We continued our large Inclusive Futures separate contract and grant: DFID disability inclusion development (DID) (in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania) and DFID Inclusion Works (in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda).

14. Policy and research: these activities provide a consistent underpinning in support of our programme activities.

Trachoma surveyors visit the Yainkassa community in northern Sierra Leone.

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9 Total expenditure

9Total expenditure
				Allocation
	Grants	Direct	Gifts	of support	Total	Total
	payable	costs	in kind	costs	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Raising funds	-	16,909	416	2,201	19,526	18,061
Charitable activities Health: eye care Neglected tropical disease Gift in kind drugs Education Social inclusion Policy and research Other: revaluations Other: forward exchange contracts Total resources expended 2020	3,494 27,381 345 5,818 - - - 37,038	5,934 17,904 2,112 3,274 2,537 392 27 49,089	30 154,699 155,145	2,057 2,493 679 1,040 663 - - 9,133	11,515 47,778 154,699 3,136 10,132 3,200 392 27 250,405	14,630 48,128 235,760 3,903 7,692 3,176 697 58 n/a
Total resources expended 2019	35,637	51,356	236,225	8,887	n/a	332,105

During the year Sightsavers made grants to partner organisations carrying out work in support of the mission. These are considered to be part of the costs of activities in furtherance of the aims of Sightsavers: much of the charity’s programme activity is carried out through grants to local organisations that support long-term, sustainable benefits for people affected by blindness, visual impairment and disability. This includes capacity building and partnership development. The work of these local organisations is closely monitored by Sightsavers.

A list of principal grants is available on our website: www.sightsavers.org/annual-reports

Direct costs include all the costs which are directly attributable to generating funds: £10,796,000 (2019: £11,129,000); the direct operation of the overseas programmes, including the procurement of equipment for use in the programmes £2,344,000 (2019: £2,550,000); informing and creating awareness amongst the public and governance of Sightsavers.

Staff costs included in direct costs is £21,538,000 (2019: £19,473,000).

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In Nigeria, workers build a latrine to improve sanitation in the community. Encouraging good hygiene is a key part of Sightsavers’ work to eliminate diseases such as trachoma.

Support costs and the basis of their allocation

	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Directorate	233	131
Governance Financial management Information communication technology Human resources Planning, performance and reporting Programme support Total	1,961 347 2,381 833 377 3,001 9,133	1,880 663 2,392 766 285 2,770 8,887

Support costs are defined as costs that cannot be directly identified with a single activity of the organisation, such as head office finance, human resources, facilities etc, and are primarily identified by cost centre. All costs associated with Sightsavers’ overseas offices, such as finance or rent etc, are included as direct costs as these are directly related to the implementation of Sightsavers’ programmes.

The support costs were allocated across the expenditure categories based on an estimate of the time spent. This estimate is updated periodically.

Other costs include foreign exchange gains and losses. In 2020 a foreign exchange loss of £397,000 (2019: loss of £697,000) arose on the translation of foreign currency denominated monetary net assets.

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10 Net income/expenditure

2020	2020	2019	2019
£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Stated after charging:
Depreciation	175		740
Fees paid to Crowe: UK charity audit 83 International audits 57 USAID audit 2 Tax advisory 22 Fees paid to other audit firms: International audits 117 Pension scheme audit 6 EC project verification 6 Investment managers’ fees Operating lease charges	164 129 53 1,096	73 - 11 7 151 6 9	91 166 64 937

11 Staff costs

	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Wages and salaries	20,532	18,329
Social security costs Employer’s contribution to defined contribution pension scheme Operating costs of defined benefit pension scheme End of service benefit Other employee benefits	1,857 1,535 1 590 710	1,653 1,256 - 579 497
Total	25,225	22,314

The average number of employees during the year was as follows:

	2020	2019
	No.	No.
Directorate	8	8
Finance and performance Global fundraising NTDs Policy and programme strategies International programmes	103 83 33 119 347	95 84 29 100 313
Total	693	629

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Staff number growth was grant and contract driven, in particular following an increase in the FCDO Ascend contract. New staff members were recruited overseas and within the UK-based programme teams to support this increase in activity, as well as within support functions.

The total employee remuneration of the chief executive and direct reports was £1,067,734 (2019: £1,089,171), inclusive of employer pension and national insurance contributions.

For staff paid £60,000 or greater per annum, the number of employees with emoluments in the following ranges were:

----- Start of picture text -----
No. employees
Range 2020 2019
£60,000 – £69,999 15 18
£70,000 – £79,999 15 9
£80,000 – £89,999 5 4
£90,000 – £99,999 4 5
- -
£100,000 – £109,999
- -
£110,000 – £119,999
£120,000 – £129,999 2 1
£130,000 – £139,999 2 3
-
£140,000 – £149,999 1
----- End of picture text -----

The cost of health insurance for two senior employees with places of work outside of the United Kingdom with no available state health provision are included within their emoluments above £60,000 per annum. These costs contribute to both of those staff members comprising the highest emoluments banding, and are also included in their remuneration as direct reports to the chief executive.

The chief executive received the highest base salary and also received the highest emoluments in 2020.

End-of-service benefit scheme liabilities/ payments are deemed as an employer’s contributions to an individual employee pension scheme and as such are not classed as employee emoluments.

Sightsavers operates a flexible holidays scheme where employees can increase or decrease their annual holiday entitlement by buying or selling up to five days of holiday. The value of flexible holiday transactions, which increase and decrease remuneration, has not been included in the calculations of emoluments in the above table so as to allow comparability around base salary plus other emoluments.

Redundancy and termination payments made and provided for during the year to employees for compensation for loss of employment totalled £52,108 (2019: £12,612).

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12 Pension costs

Sightsavers operates a defined contribution pension scheme for UK staff. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the charity in an independently administered fund. Sightsavers contributes twice the level of an employee’s contribution up to a maximum of 10 per cent per cent of pensionable pay. Contributions payable by Sightsavers were £1,487,336 in 2020 (2019: £1,255,296), of which £127,975 was outstanding at the balance sheet date (2019: £127,635). The disclosure in note 11 also includes the costs of contributions to overseas pension schemes.

2002 and closed to future accrual on 31 August 2010, although active members at that date continue to have their benefits linked to future salary increases. A full actuarial valuation is carried out every three years by a qualified actuary, independent of the scheme’s sponsoring employer, the latest at 31 December 2018. The major assumptions used by the actuary for financial reporting are shown on page 117.

Sightsavers is operating a 10-year indexed deficit recovery contribution plan agreed with the trustees of the pension scheme, paying funding contributions of £360,000 per annum in real terms to the scheme, from 2016, through to the end of 2026. In 2020 this was indexed to £405,183. Contribution payments are subject to inflation indexation, set at 3% per annum. Payments are made monthly.

Sightsavers operates a defined benefit pension scheme in the UK. This is a separate trustee administered fund holding the pension scheme assets to meet longterm pension liabilities. The scheme was closed to new members on 30 September

Nur Ali, 66, at an eye camp in Rangpur, Bangladesh. After being diagnosed with cataracts, Nur will receive free surgery through the Right to Health project, funded by UK aid.

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Present values of defined benefit obligation, fair value of assets and defined benefit asset (liability)

	2020	2019	2018
	£’000	£’000	£’000
Fair value of plan assets	16,427	15,086	13,946
Present value of defined benefit obligation Surplus (deficit) in plan Unrecognised surplus	(17,805) (1,378) -	(15,456) (370) -	(14,066) (120) -
Defined benefit asset (liability)
to be recognised	(1,378)	(370)	(120)

Reconciliation of opening and closing balances of the defined benefit obligation

	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Defined benefit obligation at start of period Expenses Interest expense Actuarial losses (gains) Benefits paid and expenses Losses (gains) due to benefit changes	15,456 - 315 2,904 (871) 1	14,066 - 388 1,432 (430) -
Defined benefit obligation at
end of period	17,805	15,456

Reconciliation of opening and closing balances

of the fair value of plan assets

	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Fair value of plan assets at start of period	15,086	13,946
Interest income Actuarial gains (losses) Contributions by the employer Benefits paid and expenses Fair value of plan assets at end of period	312 1,495 405 (871) 16,427	390 754 426 (430) 15,086

The actuarial return on the plan assets over the period ending 31 December 2020 was £1,807,000 (2019: £1,144,000).

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Defined benefit costs recognised in net income / (expenditure)

	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Net interest cost	3	(2)
Losses (gains) due to benefit changes	1	-
Defined benefit cost recognised in
resources expended	4	(2)

Defined benefit costs recognised in other recognised gains (losses)

	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Return on plan assets (excluding amounts
included in net interest cost) – gain	1,495	754
Gains (losses) arising on the plan liabilities Effects of changes in the demographic and financial assumptions underlying the present value of the plan liabilities – (loss) Total	155 (3,059) (1,409)	(145) (1,287) (678)

The assets of the scheme are held via an investment platform in funds managed by BMO (Bank of Montreal), Columbia Threadneedle and Baillie Gifford. The managed funds are invested in a diversified portfolio of investments comprising 72.6% growth assets, 26.9% liability-driven investments (LDI) assets and 0.5% cash.

The fair value of assets of the scheme at 31 December 2020, along with the expected percentage rates of return (Asset RoR) on the scheme assets are as follows:

Asset	2020	Asset	2019	Asset	2018
RoR%	£’000	RoR%	£’000	RoR%	£’000
Growth assets	11,934		11,667		7,370
Gilts Corporate bonds Liability-driven investments (LDI) Cash Total assets 1.4%	- - 4,416 77 16,427	2.10%	- - 3,389 30 15,086	2.80%	3,371 3,161 44 13,946

None of the fair values of the assets shown above includes any direct investments in the employer’s own financial instruments or any property occupied by, or other assets used by, the employer.

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As required for the preparation of statutory accounts and in accordance with the requirements of FRS 102, the actuarial valuation was updated by Mercer Limited (the Mercer Group having acquired JLT Benefit Solutions Limited) as at 31 December 2020. The major assumptions used for the purpose of calculating the deficiency were:

	2020	2019	2018
Discount rate	1.4%	2.10%	2.80%
Inflation (RPI) Inflation (CPI) Salary increases Allowance for revaluation of deferred pensions of CPI or 5% p.a. if less Allowance for pension in payment increases of RPI or 8.5% p.a. if less Allowance for pension in payment increases of RPI or 5% p.a. if less Allowance for pension in payment increases of CPI or 3% p.a. if less	3.1% 2.6% 2.9% 2.6% 3.00% 3.00% 2.60%	2.80% 2.00% 2.30% 2.00% 2.70% 2.70% 2.00%	3.25% 2.25% 2.55% 2.25% 3.15% 3.15% 2.25%
	75% of post	75% of post	75% of post
Allowance for commutation of pension for cash at retirement	A day	A day	A day

The mortality assumptions adopted as at 31 December 2020 imply the following life expectancies at age 65:

			2020	2019
			Years	Years
Member aged	65	(current life expectancy): male	21.8	21.8
Member aged Member aged Member aged	45 65 45	(life expectancy at 65): male (current life expectancy): female (life expectancy at 65): female	23.7 23.1 25.2	23.6 23.1 25.2

The best estimate of contributions to be paid by Sightsavers to the scheme for the period commencing 1 January 2021 is £417,355.

13 Trustees’ expenses

		2020		2019
	No. of trustees	£’000	No. of trustees	£’000
Reimbursed to trustees:
UK-related	12	1	12	26
Programme visits	-	-	1	2

No emoluments or any other benefits have been received by the trustees (2019: £nil). Trustees can be reimbursed for their travel and subsistence expenses in attending meetings. Additionally, trustees may occasionally visit Sightsavers’ partners and programmes overseas, with costs of such trips being met by the charity. Trustees are encouraged to visit at least one international programme in every four-year term served.

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14 Related party transactions

Sightsavers chief executive Dr Caroline Harper is a trustee of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). IAPB was paid £119,106 in 2020 (2019: £100,000). In 2020 this payment was made primarily in support of the UN Friends of Vision Group and Vision Atlas, a compilation of eye health data and excellence and also includes Sightsavers’ membership fee to IAPB; no payable balance was outstanding at the end of the year (2019: £nil). Sightsavers received grant funding of £327,319 in 2020 (2019: £764,784) from Standard Chartered Bank’s ‘Seeing Is Believing’ programme, which is co-managed by IAPB.

Dr Harper is also on the board of trustees of the International Civil Society Centre; the Centre was paid £28,788 in 2020 (2019: £22,826) for event support payments and contributions to its strategy fund. A balance of £24,297 was outstanding at the end of the year (2019: £22,512).

The related party transactions and intercompany balances of the charity with subsidiary and related undertakings are:

related undertakings are:
		2020		2019
	Grants from	Intercompany balances	Grants from	Intercompany balances
	Sightsavers UK	at 31 December	Sightsavers UK	at 31 December
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Sightsavers Ireland	-	964	-	398
Sightsavers Italia Sightsavers International Inc. Sightsavers Inc. Insamlingsstiftelsen Sightsavers International (Sverige) Stiftelsen Sightsavers International Norge Sightsavers Middle East Consultancy FZE Sightsavers (Trading)	- 13 - 123 136 - -	(115) (87) 4,253 97 (25) - (1)	- 7 - 178 48 - -	335 (126) 5,883 85 103 - 29

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15 Tangible fixed assets

	Freehold	Leasehold	Computer	Office fixtures	Motor
	property	property	equipment	and fittings	vehicles	Total
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Cost or valuation
At 1 January 2020 Additions Disposals At 31 December 2020	59 - - 59	771 - - 771	27 - - 27	266 42 (266) 42	1,596 159 (110) 1,645	2,719 201 (376) 2,544
Depreciation At 1 January 2020 Charge for the year Disposals At 31 December 2020	59 - - 59	749 6 - 755	2 10 - 12	266 - (266) -	1,596 159 (110) 1,645	2,672 175 (376) 2,471
Net book value At 31 December 2020	-	16	15	42	-	73
At 1 January 2020	-	22	25	-	-	47

In 2014, Sightsavers’ head office relocated to 35 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, a leasehold property. The balance held in leasehold property above includes the capitalised finance lease cost associated with leasehold improvements and associated fixtures and fittings, and a provision for future dilapidations costs to remove leasehold improvements at the end of the lease, in line with the conditions of the lease agreement.

16 Investments

16Investments
	Group		Charity
	2020	2019	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Market value at 1 January	6,575	6,022	6,575	6,022
Disposals at opening market value Acquisitions at cost Net unrealised gains on revaluation at 31 December Cash held in portfolio at 31 December Market value at 31 December Historical cost at 31 December* Fund managed investments at market value Non-fund managed investments at trustees valuation	(3,357) 3,278 124 6,620 98 6,718 6,496 6,620 - 6,620	(1,987) 2,018 522 6,575 177 6,752 6,053 6,575 - 6,575	(3,357) 3,278 124 6,620 98 6,718 6,496 6,620 - 6,620	(1,987) 2,018 522 6,575 177 6,752 6,053 6,575 - 6,575

In addition to the 2020 unrealised gains shown above, there were realised losses of £116,604 in the year (2019: realised gains of £110,264), which combine to provide the total net gain on investments as shown in the statement of financial activities on page 94.

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Of the UK amounts, the holdings with a market value greater than 5 per cent of the total portfolio value were:

portfolio value were:
		2020	2019
	%	£’000	£’000
Key Multi Manager Hedge Fund Diversified	7.7	511	648
Key Multi Manager Hedge Fund Focused UBS ETF PLC MSCI UK SOC RES UCITS Charity Property Fund UBS INV Funds ICVC S&P UBS ETF MSCI Emerging Mkt SHS A	7.4 9.4 7.0 - 10.7	492 621 466 - 710	- 621 484 431 415
Pimco	5.9	394	-

Subsidiary undertakings

These group accounts include the activities, assets and liabilities of its subsidiaries. Sightsavers has the following subsidiaries:

				Net				Surplus/
		Assets	Liabilities	assets	Capital	Income	Expenditure	(deficit)
		£’000s	£’000s	£’000s	£’000s	£’000s	£’000s	£’000s
2020	Sightsavers Ireland	2,154	1,411	743	-	6,266	6,236	30
	Sightsavers Italia Sightsavers International Inc. Sightsavers Inc. Insamlingsstiftelsen Sightsavers International (Sverige) Stiftelsen Sightsavers International Norge Sightsavers Trading	1,288 110 5,118 136 134 22	383 6 5,007 117 39 4	905 104 111 19 95 18	- - - - - -	4,365 13 7,349 576 633 24	3,657 49 6,942 523 584 15	708 (36) 407 53 49 9
2019	Sightsavers Ireland Sightsavers Italia Sightsavers International Inc. Sightsavers Inc. Insamlingsstiftelsen Sightsavers International (Sverige) Stiftelsen Sightsavers International Norge	1,209 896 149 8,496 76 162	503 699 9 8,793 110 116	706 197 140 (297) (34) 46	- - - - - -	5,651 2,980 18 12,140 705 511	5,634 2,960 19 12,507 731 527	17 20 (1) (367) (26) (16)
	Sightsavers Trading	42	32	10	-	17	5	12

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A team in the Littoral region of western Cameroon prepare to distribute medication to school students, as part of a programme to prevent the spread of intestinal worms.

17 Debtors

17Debtors
	Group		Charity
	2020	2019	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Amounts owed by group and associated undertakings	-	-	5,323	6,831
Prepayments and accrued income Other debtors	3,587 300 3,887	4,277 715 4,992	3,038 291 8,652	3,705 681 11,217

Amounts owed by group and associated undertakings were: Sightsavers (Trading) £9,000 (2019: £29,000); Sightsavers Italia £nil (2019: £334,000); Sightsavers Inc £4,253,000 (2019: £5,882,000); Sightsavers Sweden £97,000 (2019: £85,000); Sightsavers Norway £nil (2019: £103,000); Sightsavers Ireland £964,000 (2019: £398,000).

The charity is committed to purchasing a total of US$2.39 million (2019 $1.93 million) under forward contract at 31 December 2020 and to sell a commensurate amount of GBP at a USD/GBP average rate of 1.2948 as part of its foreign exchange risk management strategy. The fair value of these forward purchases is held within other debtors. See note 21 for further details.

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18 Cash at bank and in hand

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Charity
2020 2019 2020 2019
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Cash at bank
UK 40,908 22,865 40,890 22,829
Ireland 1,798 851 - -
Italy 1,038 711 - -
USA 5,110 8,480 - -
Sweden 135 68 - -
Norway 88 162 - -
Middle East 126 104 126 104
India 1,447 944 1,447 944
Africa 454 450 454 450
South Asia 168 148 167 148
51,272 34,783 43,084 24,475
Cash in hand
India 2 2 2 2
South Asia 1 - 1 -
Africa 4 6 4 6
51,279 34,791 43,091 24,483
----- End of picture text -----

Cash at bank includes money received at the year-end that is to be expended in the first quarter of 2021. In addition, further funds were received in advance to facilitate short-term cash commitments later than three months. In general, these are held in short-term, highly liquid interest-earning deposit accounts with our existing relationship bank partners until required.

As of 31 December 2020, restricted cash stands at £33,966,000 (2019: £27,049,761).

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19 Creditors

Amounts falling due within one year

Amounts falling due within one year
	Group		Charity
	2020	2019	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Bank loans and overdrafts	1,885	240	1,885	240
Amounts owed to group and associated undertakings Payments received on account for contracts or performance-related grants Accruals and deferred income Taxation and social security Other creditors	- 13,180 1,771 436 1,693	- 9,567 2,222 419 1,729	227 10,179 3,316 404 1,549	126 6,641 1,886 391 1,592
	18,965	14,177	17,560	10,876

Amount owed to group and associated undertakings was: Sightsavers International Inc. £87,000 (2019: £126,000); Sightsavers Italia £115,000 (2019: £nil); and Sightsavers Norway £25,000 (2019: £nil).

The charity has a high level of restricted cash balances and associated liabilities due to a number of grants with performance-related conditions. When cash is received in advance on such grants, income is deferred until the performance conditions have been met.

Sightsavers has agreed a one-year renewable rolling £5 million standard general-purpose overdraft facility with HSBC, which can be used to provide working capital funding for specific contracts with payment in arrears terms, principally DFID Ascend and DFID DID. The facility operates via a designated bank account, which held an overdraft balance at 31 December 2020 of £1,884,726 (2019: £240,435). The facility is unsecured but repayable on demand.

Movement on deferred income during the year

	Group		Charity
	2020	2019	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Balance brought forward	9,933	6,512	7,007	5,491
Received in year Released to income Balance carried forward	42,404 (38,853) 13,484	31,672 (28,251) 9,933	40,020 (34,634) 12,393	26,939 (25,423) 7,007

The balance carried forward on deferred income is split between payments received on account for contracts or performance-related grants and an element from accruals and deferred income. This element comprises funding received in advance for 2021 projects.

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20 Provision for other liabilities

The charity had the following provisions during the year:

	Dilapidations provisions £’000 End of contract/ service benefit £’000 Employee benefit accrual £’000 Total 2020 £’000 Total 2019 £’000
Group	At 1 January 2020 54 430 228 712 691 Additions - 666 239 905 675 Utilised - (502) - (502) (487) Reversals - - (227) (227) (147) Foreign exchange translation adjustment - (11) - (11) (20) At 31 December 2020 54 583 240 877 n/a
	At 31 December 2019 54 430 228 n/a 712
Charity	At 1 January 2020 50 430 225 705 684 Additions - 666 237 903 673 Utilised - (502) - (502) (487) Reversals - - (224) (224) (145) Foreign exchange translation adjustment - (11) - (11) (20) At 31 December 2020 50 583 238 871 n/a
	At 31 December 2019 50 430 225 n/a 705

Dilapidations provision

As part of the charity’s property leasing arrangements, there is an obligation to repair damages that incur during the life of the lease, such as wear and tear. The cost is charged to the SOFA as the obligation arises. The provision is expected to be utilised before 2028, the year the leases terminate.

End of contract/service benefit

The charity provides certain international employees with an end of contract/service benefit. The charity does not set aside assets to fund the payments and pays the benefits out of cash resources. The amounts provided are paid out as and when required and are ongoing while the employee remains in employment.

Employee benefit accrual

The charity recognises a provision for annual leave accrued by employees as a result of services rendered in the current period, and which employees are entitled to carry forward and use within the next 12 months. The provision is measured at the salary cost payable for the period of absence.

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21 Financial instruments

The charity has certain financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at amortised cost. Certain other financial instruments are held at fair value, with gains and losses being recognised within income and expenditure.

The charity has the following financial instruments measured at fair value through the profit and loss:

the profit and loss:
		Group			Charity
		2020		2019	2020	2019
		£’000		£’000	£’000	£’000
Financial assets measured at fair value, through profit and loss
Investments		6,718		6,752	6,718	6,752
Forward foreign exchange contracts		(51)		(29)	(51)	(29)
		6,667		6,723	6,667	6,723
		Group	2020			Group 2019
Income	Expense Gain/(loss)			Income	Expense	Gain/(loss)
£’000		£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
Financial assets measured at fair value, through
profit and loss Investments 157 Forward foreign exchange contracts - 157		- (22) (22)	157 (22) 135	800 - 800	- (54) (54)	800 (54) 746

Sightsavers entered into five forward exchange contracts during the year to hedge forward currency exposure on future programme expenditure. These contracts were to purchase US dollars (USD) using sterling (GBP) each for six months in duration, at GBP/USD contract rates ranging from 1.24880 to 1.34077.

As at 31 December 2020, a combined purchase value of $2,388,739 remained on two contracts, which represents approximately 18 per cent of forecast USD correlated charitable expenditure for the equivalent period of the remaining contract (before taking account of USD income). As at 31 December 2020, the average mark to market USD/GBP exchange rate was 1.3569.

As at 31 December 2020, the carrying amount in the balance sheet of these contracts was a loss of £50,835 (2019: loss of £29,187). This movement on the fair value forms part of the free reserves in note 22.

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Annual report 2020

22 Statement of funds

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2020 Balance at Investment Balance at
1 January gains/ 31 December
2020 Income Expenditure (losses) Transfers 2020
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
General reserve:
Free reserve 13,819 37,898 (32,530) 7 2,846 22,040
Pension reserve (370) - 401 (1,409) - (1,378)
Designated funds:
Future overseas expenditure 1,147 - - - 683 1,830
Fixed assets fund 47 - - - 26 73
- - - -
Liquidity reserve 3,000 3,000
Total unrestricted funds 17,643 37,898 (32,129) (1,402) 3,555 25,565
Restricted funds:
Donations and legacies:
FCDO UK Aid Connect Inclusion Works 127 3,138 (3,075) - (186) 4
FCDO UK Aid Match 99 1,297 (1,308) - - 88
-
People’s Postcode Lottery 2,504 2,588 (999) (142) 3,951
Standard Chartered Bank Seeing is Believing 129 605 (638) - 128 224
Irish Aid - 1,611 (1,534) - (77) -
States of Jersey 34 103 (100) - (5) 32
Fred Hollows Foundation 92 130 (129) - (93) -
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation 932 429 (929) - 56 488
Dubai Duty Free 11 111 (116) - - 6
Dubai Cares 112 304 (238) - (20) 158
The END Fund 26 338 (458) - 94 -
Izumi Foundation 30 98 (103) - (10) 15
GiveWell Fund – Good Ventures
-
Foundation (GiveWell) 7,573 2,074 (2,399) (708) 6,540
GiveWell Fund – The ClearFund 75 238 - - - 313
Rama Prasad Group (RPG) 26 24 (47) - (3) -
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 15 218 (307) - 74 -
Arcadia 230 - (144) - (49) 37
DAK Foundation - 129 - - - 129
Cholamandalam Business Services 94 245 (143) - 23 219
L’Occitane Foundation - 134 (22) - 10 122
Other 1,329 11,722 (10,227) - (252) 2,572
Subtotal 13,438 25,536 (22,916) - (1,160) 14,898
Gifts in kind - 154,699 (154,699) - - -
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2020 Balance at Investment Balance at
1 January gains/ 31 December
2020 Income Expenditure (losses) Transfers 2020
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Income from charitable activities:
FCDO Nigeria NTD - - (2) - 2 -
FCDO SAFE - - 28 - (28) -
FCDO Aid Match - 5 - - (5) -
FCDO DID - 3,900 (3,768) - (132) -
FCDO ASCEND - 22,232 (21,353) - (879) -
USAID - 149 (141) - (8) -
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust - - 18 - (18) -
The Gates Foundation - 2,505 (2,134) - (371) -
Accelerate Partners – FCDO Commonwealth - 4,664 (4,340) - (324) -
- - -
Accelerate partners – other 9,294 (8,628) (666)
Helen Keller International - 191 (229) - 38 -
RTI International - 14 (13) - - 1
EC India 28 134 (99) - (4) 59
Subtotal 28 43,088 (40,661) - (2,395) 60
Total restricted funds 13,466 223,323 (218,276) - (3,555) 14,958
Endowment funds:
Mountjoy Trust 214 - - - - 214
Total endowment funds 214 - - - - 214
Total funds 31,323 261,221 (250,405) (1,402) - 40,737
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Annual report 2020

22 Statement of funds (continued)

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2019 Balance at Investment Balance at
1 January gains/ 31 December
2019 Income Expenditure (losses) Transfers 2019
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
General reserve:
Free reserve 12,128 32,111 (33,609) 632 2,557 13,819
Pension reserve (120) - 428 (678) - (370)
Designated funds:
- - -
Future overseas expenditure 1,514 (367) 1,147
Fixed assets fund 9 - - - 38 47
- - - -
Liquidity reserve 3,000 3,000
Total unrestricted funds 16,531 32,111 (33,181) (46) 2,228 17,643
Restricted funds:
Donations and legacies:
FCDO Inclusion Works 30 2,482 (2,265) - (120) 127
FCDO UK Aid Match 143 911 (955) - - 99
-
People’s Postcode Lottery 1,074 2,889 (1,304) (155) 2,504
Standard Chartered Bank Seeing is Believing 125 860 (851) - (5) 129
Irish Aid - 1,543 (1,470) - (73) -
States of Jersey 70 273 (264) - (45) 34
Fred Hollows Foundation 92 192 (183) - (9) 92
Charity Projects Comic Relief 57 13 (59) - (11) -
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation 383 858 (399) - 90 932
Dubai Duty Free - 120 (109) - - 11
Dubai Cares 335 203 (413) - (13) 112
The END Fund - 572 (463) - (83) 26
Izumi Foundation 23 87 (88) - 8 30
-
Good Ventures Foundation (GiveWell) 2,050 7,748 (1,876) (349) 7,573
Rama Prasad Group (RPG) 49 121 (136) - (8) 26
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 48 306 (289) - (50) 15
Big Lottery Fund 154 195 (267) - (16) 66
Arcadia - 768 (511) - (27) 230
Other 588 11,586 (11,322) - 580 1,432
Subtotal 5,221 31,727 (23,224) - (286) 13,438
Gifts in Kind - 235,760 (235,760) - - -
Income from charitable activities:
FCDO Nigeria NTD 522 1,150 (778) - (894) -
FCDO Aid Match - 1,055 (906) - (149) -
FCDO SAFE - 4,156 (5,892) - 1,736 -
FCDO DID 46 1,968 (2,014) - - -
FCDO ASCEND - 8,958 (8,301) - (657) -
USAID - 246 (231) - (15) -
- - -
The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust 3,902 (3,271) (631)
The Gates Foundation - 2,405 (2,091) - (314) -
Accelerate Partners 11 17,041 (16,038) - (1,014) -
EC India 52 398 (418) - (4) 28
Subtotal 631 41,279 (39,940) - (1,942) 28
Total restricted funds 5,852 308,766 (298,924) - (2,228) 13,466
Endowment funds:
Mountjoy Trust 214 - - - - 214
Total endowment funds 214 - - - - 214
Total funds 22,597 340,877 (332,105) (46) - 31,323
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Designated funds

The balance on future overseas expenditure represents cash held in overseas programme countries bank accounts at the balance sheet date. These balances will be drawn down within one to two months of the year-end.

The balance on the fixed-asset fund represents the net book value of tangible fixed assets at the balance sheet date. These are operational assets required for the day-to-day operations of the charity.

A liquidity reserve has been maintained as designated at year end 2020, at a level of £3 million, to ensure adequate operational liquidity and cash availability to support the day to day operations of the charity.

Restricted funds

The transfer to unrestricted funds of £3,555,000 relates mainly to funds received as part of restricted funding agreements that are provided for Sightsavers indirect costs, principally under our large grants and contracts, including with DFID.

Endowment funds

The Mountjoy Trust is invested and the interest earned is expended specifically for the benefit of people with visual impairments, either blind or near blind, in accordance with the terms of the bequest.

The principal grant contracts that Sightsavers has classified as restricted fund projects in 2019, the majority of which are recognised under charitable activities, are set out on the following pages .

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Donor name Countries affected Formal contract name
Irish Aid Cameroon, Liberia, Senegal Programme Grant II
and Sierra Leone
Jersey Overseas Aid Mozambique Nampula Inclusive Eye Health
Jersey Overseas Aid Zambia New vision: Bringing quality eye health
to Muchinga and Eastern Province,
Zambia
Conrad N. Hilton Mali Contribution to the elimination of
Foundation trachoma as a public problem in Mali
Conrad N. Hilton Tanzania Supporting research to understand the
Foundation role of gender in trichiasis case finding in
Tanzania
Conrad N. Hilton Tanzania Support the national trachoma
Foundation elimination programme in Tanzania
The END Fund Côte d’Ivoire Control and elimination of onchocerciasis
(oncho) and lymphatic filariasis (LF) in
Côte d’Ivoire
Izumi Foundation Ghana Elimination of NTDs in Ghana
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Annual report 2020

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Donor name Countries affected Formal contract name
Liverpool School of Tropical Nigeria Programme of implementation research
Medicine to inform the effective and sustainable
scaling-up of integrated neglected
tropical disease (NTD) control initiatives
GiveWell Recommended Cameroon, Nigeria, Guinea Delivering schistosomiasis and soil
Funds Bissau, Guinea Conakry transmitted helminths MDA in: DRC,
and Democratic Republic of Nigeria, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau and
Congo Guinea Conakry
Foreign, Commonwealth Burkina Faso, Chad, Accelerating the sustainable control
and Development Office Central African Republic, and elimination of neglected tropical
Côte D’Ivoire, Democratic diseases (ASCEND): Western
Republic of Congo, Guinea, and Central Africa
Liberia, Niger, Nigeria,
Benin, Ghana, Guinea-
Bissau and Sierra Leone
Foreign, Commonwealth Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Disability Inclusive Development
and Development Office Tanzania, Nepal and Jordan programme
Foreign, Commonwealth Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria Inclusion Works
and Development Office and Uganda
Foreign, Commonwealth Bangladesh and Pakistan The right to health: Breaking down
and Development Office barriers to eye health in South Asia
Foreign, Commonwealth Tanzania Improved sustainability and equity of
and Development Office access to affordable and quality eye care
services for people with and without
disabilities in Tanzania
Foreign, Commonwealth Malawi and Uganda Improved access to affordable, quality
and Development Office eye care services for people, with and
without disabilities, in South West
region, Malawi and Karamoja, Uganda
Foreign, Commonwealth Global, including Ethiopia, Resource and support hub (RSH)
and Development Office Nigeria and South Sudan
Foreign, Commonwealth Pakistan Pakistan trachoma elimination programme
and Development Office
USAID Mali We can learn: Inclusive education for
visually impaired primary school children
in Mali
The Bill & Melinda Gates Global 1. Enhancing the advocacy capacity
Foundation of the Uniting to Combat NTDs
support centre
2. Setting and resourcing a new NTD
agenda for a decade
The Bill & Melinda Gates Nigeria and Mozambique Onchocerciasis elimination mapping in
Foundation Africa
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Donor name Countries affected Formal contract name
Accelerate partners
Commonwealth Summit Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Contributing towards eliminating
Fund Pakistan, Papua New blinding trachoma in the Commonwealth
Guinea, Solomon Islands,
Tonga, Nauru, Vanuatu and
Kiribati
The Bill & Melinda Gates Benin, Botswana, Burkina Accelerate: Eliminate blinding trachoma
foundation Faso, Cameroon, Côte in ten African countries and make
d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, significant progress towards elimination
Virgin Unite Guinea Bissau, Kenya, in three other African countries via an
Namibia, Senegal, Tanzania, integrated neglected tropical disease
Children’s Investment Fund
Uganda, Zambia and programme and conduct targeted
Foundation
Zimbabwe research on reducing child mortality
ELMA Foundation through trachoma and onchocerciasis
programmes
Anonymous donor
European Commission India No one left behind: promoting an
inclusive society in Rajasthan
European Commission Uganda The economic empowerment of youth
with disabilities in Uganda
Helen Keller International Cameroon Act to end NTDs West program
(Sub FHI360/USAID)
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Annual report 2020

23 Analysis of net assets between funds

	Tangible			Other net	Pension
	fixed assets	Investments	Cash	assets	liability	Net assets
	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000	£’000
2020	Unrestricted funds:
	General - 6,504 Designated 73 - Restricted funds - - Endowment funds - 214 73 6,718		12,483 4,830 33,966 - 51,279	3,053 - (19,008) - (15,955)	(1,378) - - - (1,378)	20,662 4,903 14,958 214 40,737
2019	Unrestricted funds: General - 6,538 Designated 47 - Restricted funds - - Endowment funds - 214 47 6,752		3,594 4,147 27,050 - 34,791	3,687 - (13,584) (9,897)	(370) - - - (370)	13,449 4,194 13,466 214 31,323

24 Leasing commitments

Operating lease obligations

Sightsavers is committed to make future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases of £2,210,000 (2019: £2,266,000). The obligation to make these payments fall due as follows:

fall due as follows:
	2020	2019
	£’000	£’000
Land and buildings
Within 1 year Within 2-5 years After 5 years Subtotal Other	827 1,284 - 2,111	792 1,336 - 2,128
Within 1 year	34	34
Within 2-5 years After 5 years Subtotal	65 - 99	104 - 138
Total	2,210	2,266

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25 Post-balance sheet events

Sightsavers has been impacted by the financial budget cuts being made by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. In June 2021 FCDO issued a ‘no fault’ termination notice on the Sightsavers Ascend NTD contract, for the contract to run until 1 November 2021 (compared to the contractual end date of March 2022), with agreed activities to be completed by the end of August 2021. We expect to agree an exit plan, inclusive of coverage of our costs of exit.

programme. As at the date of this report we do not know if we have been successful.

We have been informed that our Disability Inclusive Development programme current-year budget will be cut by around 25%. We are still in discussions with FCDO on the smaller Inclusion Works programme. Our UK Aid Match eye health programmes are not affected by the cuts.

There is no impact on Sightsavers status as a going concern from the above.

We are in discussions with other potential donors, to potentially fund aspects of the

Marie, a 16-year-old blind student from Karene in Sierra Leone, was among the first children supported through Sightsavers’ Education for All project. The initiative aims to ensure that children with disabilities, especially girls, are able to attend school.

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----- Start of picture text -----
www.sightsavers.org
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We work with partners in low and middle income countries to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities www.sightsavers.org

SightsaversUK @Sightsavers @sightsavers SightsaversTV

Bumpers Way Bumpers Farm Chippenham SN14 6NG UK +44 (0)1444 446 600

info@sightsavers.org

Registered charity numbers 207544 and SC038110

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On the cover

Contents

What’s inside?

04

06

09

12

18

32

33

60

68

70

78

89

94

04/

The context

Our vision

Our mission

Our objects

© Sightsavers/John Healey

Sources

06/

Message from our Chair

Sir Clive Jones Chair

Statement on FCDO aid cuts

09/

Strategy, objectives and activities

12/

Our work

Eye health

Education

Social inclusion

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)

16/

Where we work

Central Africa

Eastern Africa

Western Africa

Asia

2020 in review: Challenges and changes amid a global pandemic

Spotlight on… Our operational response to COVID-19

Spotlight on… Restarting our programmes safely

Spotlight on… Adapting our work

Neglected tropical diseases

Disability

Eye health

Influencing

Campaigning

Spotlight on… Staying connected with colleagues

Spotlight on… Fundraising: how courage in a crisis paid off

32/

Achievements in 2020

35/

Output statistics

37/

Commentary

Eye health

Neglected tropical diseases

Education

Social inclusion

Human resource development

40/

Progress towards planned objectives

Delivering for our beneficiaries

What we planned to do What we did

Increasing our capacities: areas where we need to excel

What we planned to do What we did

What we planned to do

What we did

Learning and growth: areas where we need to invest to achieve excellence

What we planned to do

What we did

Resources: funding our work and ensuring efficient and strategic use of resources

What we planned to do

What we did

What we planned to do

What we did