What interventions supported by WDF are the most effective? How can project learnings best be documented and communicated? How can this data support the investment case for diabetes and NCDs – ultimately helping developing countries save money and lives?
As WDF’s project portfolio has expanded in geographical scope, number and size in recent years, these questions have taken on increasing urgency, says WDF Managing Director Leif Fenger Jensen.
WDF signed four new projects in Africa and central Asia in the first half of 2019, and approved several others that are now in the final phases of contract negotiations.
The delegation arrived by boat. The group – seven staff from the Surinamese NGOs One Stop Shop and Medical Mission, and one from the World Diabetes Foundation – had travelled for hours to reach Ladoeani, a village on the banks of the Suriname River, and they received a warm welcome.
Alhassane Diallo is speaking, and the teenagers surrounding him are hanging on his every word.
“Like this,” he says, removing a vial of human insulin from its packaging. As he sends a young woman to wash her hands before checking her blood sugar, a boy edges closer to listen.
The building in Lomé, Togo has an unremarkable name – Association pour la promotion de la femme (Association for the Advancement of Women). Yet for the many women who pass in and out of its doors each day, it offers something remarkable indeed: a discreet refuge for people with HIV/AIDS.
In 2016, Rwanda’s Ministry of Health launched a comprehensive plan to protect the country’s residents from premature morbidity and mortality related to NCDs. It included a strong rationale for action, the Minister of Health’s endorsement – and a call for more financing to address the significant funding gap.
India held the world’s first national GDM Awareness Day on March 10 – raising awareness about the link between maternal health and diabetes nationwide, and inviting pregnant women to hospitals and clinics for free screening.
On 5 March, the Chairman of UNICEF Denmark and the Chairman of the World Diabetes Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate collaboration between the two organisations in an area of common interest: preventing diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
New projects signed in second half of 2018