Annual Review 2007

This year’s Annual Review includes examples of best practices from around the world, demonstrating how even the smallest investments and partnerships can accelerate a catalytic effect.

The replicable projects displayed in the Annual Review are examples of how political will and personal commitment to change the dire projections for the future can secure the necessary resources and attention required to establish infrastructure, build capacity, create awareness and achieve health equity.

A cornerstone in the World Diabetes Foundation’s efforts to further the prevention and treatment of diabetes in the developing world has been to ensure the involvement and ownership of the projects amongst the implementing partners and local stakeholders – from government officials to local physicians – and the ability to create enthusiasm for local activities.

“We know most of our project partners do work beyond what would be the normal call of duty. The degree of local ownership, political will and commitment has a direct impact on the success of our projects and without local involvement, the sustainability of the project is lost,” says Dr. Anil Kapur, Managing Director of the World Diabetes Foundation.

Another key focus area for the Foundation is to address the apparent lack of formulated health policies, strategies and action plans to address the emerging pandemic of diabetes and other non-communicable diseases. Isolated interventions do take place, but in the absence of an overall framework guiding the process and ensuring sustainability, planning, coherence and impact may suffer. The World Diabetes Foundation has therefore found it a logical next step to facilitate sustainability of the individual projects in a country by ensuring – where possible – that the interventions are elevated to a national strategy in a national non-communicable disease programme.

A national health programme combines the efforts towards improving access to health care with primary and secondary prevention, under the umbrella of a government endorsed network of stakeholders, joined in the fight against diabetes and other non-communicable diseases.

By doing so, we ensure that diabetes and non-communicable diseases in general are included in the national health strategies and are approached with the necessary commitment and resources required to fight the imminent socioeconomic burden of non-communicable diseases in the developing countries and for people who are least able to withstand the burden of ill-health.

To date the World Diabetes Foundation has funded 138 projects in 77 countries, focusing on diabetes awareness, education and capacity-building at local, regional and global levels. The total project portfolio has reached USD 125.7 million of which USD 42.6 million were donated by the World Diabetes Foundation. A projection of the impact of our work shows that the projects funded by the World Diabetes Foundation will positively impact 63 million people in the developing countries.

The joining of forces at global, regional and national levels is necessary to address the imminent threat to world health and break the vicious circle. At the World Diabetes Foundation, we work at all three levels, creating alliances and identifying local ambassadors to influence the health agenda, health policies and programmes and to support sustainable solutions. In the following we have sought to describe several of these interventions that underpin the Foundation’s value compliance and mission.

We encourage you to read and learn more by downloading the Annual Review 2007.

This page was last updated 2-20-2008 by taj.wdf