WDF and Danish Red Cross announce long-term partnership

The World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) and the Danish Red Cross (DRC) began collaborating in 2013, with a diabetes prevention project in rural Georgia. A second diabetes prevention and care project followed in Armenia in 2016. Then, just last month, a new joint project in Lebanon received funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, providing a much-needed investment into that country’s health system. 

Now WDF and DRC have signed a Memo of Understanding pledging to consolidate and expand their cooperation in order to nurture synergies, advance collaboration and push forward programmatic and agendas and jointly leverage funding opportunities.

“Together we will focus on expanding our cooperation in prioritising prevention and treatment of NCDs in low- and middle-income countries and humanitarian settings,” explains Peter Klansø, International Director, DRC. 

“WDF and DRC both work to improve the lives of vulnerable people, and our skills and structures complement each other,” says Leif Fenger Jensen, Managing Director, WDF. “Building on the achievements and learnings of our joint projects, this agreement will help us identify more ways we can work together to improve the lives of people at risk or living with diabetes and other NCDs in countries where access to health care is limited or resources are scarce.”

Wider global cooperation

The agreement will pursue opportunities for collaboration in the following thematic areas:

• Community-based NCD prevention and care, leveraging DRC and the global Red Cross/ Red Crescent movement’s strong experience and expertise in community engagement and patient empowerment
• NCDs in humanitarian settings, as DRC and WDF are among the few organisations with long term experience, skills and capacity concerning prevention and treatment of diabetes and other NCDs in situations of humanitarian crisis

In support of this, the two organisations will strive to integrate relevant learning, innovation, advocacy and communication elements of their work to enhance synergies, mobilise stakeholders and pilot and develop new models for community-based prevention and care for people with NCDs.

Joint resource mobilisation and resource development such as new financing models will be explored in support of efforts to improve care for diabetes and other NCDs in fragile settings.

“Our previous and current collaborations will serve as a platform for further development of a wider global cooperation between DRC and WDF. We are excited to see where this partnership will take us in the coming years addressing the global burden of non-communicable diseases,” says Peter Klansø, International Director, DRC. 

Learn more about WDF and DRC collaborations to date:

Røde Kors' Indsats mod diabetes i Armenien | Røde Kors (rodekors.dk)