Universal Health Coverage means ensuring that everyone, everywhere, can access essential quality health services without facing financial hardship. With NCDs ravaging households and societies, the need for UHC has never been more urgent.

The theme for World Diabetes Day 2018 is The Family and Diabetes. Families have a key role to play in addressing the modifiable risk factors for type 2 diabetes.

A meeting with an exceptional patient causes one NGO employee to reflect on the importance of access to basic care – and the role of the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in making it happen.

Sheila Vasconcellos is a journalist living with type 1 diabetes in Brazil. Here she writes of how both challenges and opportunities - like being a Bakken Invitation Honoree - have inspired her to be a powerful voice of change for NCDs.

Delegates from across West and Central Africa gathered in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on 2-5 May 2018 to share experiences and urge more action on diabetes and NCDs.