Advocacy

Advocacy is one of our core activities. We believe that double standards of care between high- and low-income countries should end. We believe that people living with diabetes can and do reach the very highest levels of success — but too many are held back by stigma, discrimination, poverty, and lack of access to modern diabetes care.

We aim to change that.

National and global policy processes can be difficult to navigate and even harder to influence. We make them clearer and more accessible by producing plain-language resources people living with diabetes can understand and act on.

We don’t just run our own activities — we work in collaboration with like-minded groups to advance shared priorities. Our accomplishments so far:

• Essential insulin access: we organized submissions to support the inclusion of fast-acting insulin analogs on the WHO Essential Medicines List. And won.
• Lived experience at the UN: we advocated for the meaningful engagement of people with lived experience at the Multistakeholder Hearings and 2025 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs — and put our position on record.
• Global support for diabetes research: we organized 50+ letters of support for a community-led research initiative planned for 2026.

We attend international events to represent the voice of our community, including those affected by humanitarian disasters and emergencies.

This includes local and global forums, as well as direct meetings with politicians and policymakers to advocate for better diabetes care.