World Diabetes Foundation

NCDA partner

World Diabetes Foundation

The World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) is an independent, non-profit foundation based in Bagsværd, Denmark. Founded by Novo Nordisk A/S in 2002, the WDF is still one of the few funding mechanisms dedicated to preventing and treating diabetes in low- and middle- income countries.

It is the WDF's mission to empower governments, civil society and other non-state actors who strive to deliver on global commitments through national and local action. To achieve this, we create partnerships and act as a catalyst to help others do more. We encourage and fund innovative projects and strategies to prevent and treat diabetes and its complications.

Since 2002, the WDF has provided 170 million EUR in funding to 568 partnership projects in 118 countries. For every euro provided by WDF, project partners raise approximately 2 euros in cash or as in-kind donations from other sources.

The WDF mission:

We create partnerships to assist people with diabetes and those at risk, acting as a catalyst to help others do more
We link people and resources to educate and advocate globally and provide care locally
Our priority is to support the poorest of the poor
We empower local communities to achieve sustainable solutions and yield replicable models
We encourage innovative strategies to prevent diabetes and its consequences

Work on Global Health and NCDs

For almost two decades, WDF-funded projects have responded to an urgent need in terms of putting diabetes on the agenda and strengthening efforts to prevent and capacity to treat diabetes in a large number of low- and middle-income countries. WDF-supported initiatives have paved the way for improved access to care for those impacted by diabetes, through better screening facilities and capacity building, helping to save millions of people from unnecessary disability and lifelong indebtedness.

WDF has further contributed to putting diabetes on the agenda at the national, regional and global level by showcasing projects, and by sharing results and learnings from WDF supported projects. WDF believes that strong international and national networks are essential for influencing policy, attracting attention and resources to diabetes and NCD programmes and developing and supporting sustainable actions for diabetes prevention and care.

Through partnership with local champions, national government and international organisations, WDF has acted as a catalyst for important initiatives bringing global attention to NCDs. This has been done through project support and through providing platforms for building networks and sharing best practices - thus planting seeds for long-term change.

The WDF’s interventions is guided by three guiding principles:

We strive to support diabetes in an Integrated Care perspective to avoid creating parallel and siloed health systems and services and to ensure people with diabetes a continuum of care.
We fully support the global call to reach Universal Health Coverage supporting the right to health for all.
We urge partners to apply a Life-Course Approach in order to ensure a healthy start to life and target the needs of people at critical periods throughout their lifetime.