Summary ofrecommendations Summary of recommendations for quality of care in cataract surgery management ISBN 978-92-4-012108-9 (electronic version)ISBN 978-92-4-012109-6 (print version) © World Health Organization 2026 Some rights reserved. This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo). Under the terms of this licence, you may copy, redistribute and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes, provided the work is appropriately cited, as indicated below. In any use ofthis work, there should be no suggestion that WHO endorses any specific organization, productsor services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. If you adapt the work, then you mustlicense your work under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If you create atranslation of this work, you should add the following disclaimer along with the suggestedcitation: “This translation was not created by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO is not Any mediation relating to disputes arising under the licence shall be conducted in accordancewith the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization (http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/mediation/rules/). Suggested citation.Summary of recommendations for quality of care in cataract surgerymanagement. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2026. Licence:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. Cataloguing-in-Publication (CIP) data.CIP data are available athttps://iris.who.int/. Sales, rights and licensing.To purchase WHO publications, seehttps://www.who.int/publications/book-orders. To submit requests for commercial use and queries on rights andlicensing, seehttps://www.who.int/copyright. Third-party materials.If you wish to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a thirdparty, such as tables, figures or images, it is your responsibility to determine whether permissionis needed for that reuse and to obtain permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claimsresulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the General disclaimers.The designations employed and the presentation of the material in thispublication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WHOconcerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, orconcerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Dotted and dashed lines on maps The mention of specific companies or of certain manufacturers’ products does not imply thatthey are endorsed or recommended by WHO in preference to others of a similar nature that arenot mentioned. Errors and omissions excepted, the names of proprietary products are All reasonable precautions have been taken by WHO to verify the information contained in thispublication. However, the published material is being distributed without warranty of any kind,either expressed or implied. The responsibility for the interpretation and use of the material lieswith the reader. In no event shall WHO be liable for damages arising from its use. Contents AcknowledgementsivExecutive summary1Background2Methodology5Scope and target audience6Summary of recommendations for quality of care7Related WHO tools to support planning, implementationand monitoring14Updating the recommendations15References16Annex 1. Summary and management of declared interestsfrom experts19Annex 2. Stages of development of the cataract qualityrecommendations22Annex 3. Resources used to guide the development of therecommendations25Annex 4. Core and expanded indicators for monitoring andevaluating cataract surgery services adapted from the WHOEye care indicator menu29 The World Health Organization (WHO) would like to thank all whose dedicated The resource was developed by Doaa Sobeih, Silvio Paolo Mariotti, Stuart Keel,Andreas Mueller and Vera Carneiro of the Vision and Eye Care Programme, WHO.Valuable contributions were made by Shelly Chadha, Unit Head, Sensory Functions, A Technical Working Group composed of eye care experts provided input (byalphabetical order): Paul Cotran (Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, United States ofAmerica); Nazaradden Ibrahim (Sightsavers, Nigeria); Jonathan Lake (Opty, Brazil);Susan MacDonald (Eye Corps, United States of America); Lila Raj Puri (InternationalAgency for the Prevention of Blindness – Cataract Quality Group, United Kingdom ofGreat Britain and Northern Ireland); Mansur Rabiu (Noor Dubai Foundation, UnitedArab Emirates); Rajesh Rajpal (See Clearly Vision, United States of America); SergeResnikoff (Organization for the Prevention of Blindness, France); Mohamad AzizSalowi (Public Health Ophthalmologist and Consultant, Ministry of Health Malaysia);John Szetu (The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, Solomon Islands); Geoffrey Tabin(Stanford University, United States of America); Anna Cheng Sim Tan (Singapore WHO would also like to thank the external reviewers: Habeeb A