At the International Diabetes Federation, we consider ourselves the ‘global voice’ of diabetes - we have done for more than 60 years. We have become an influential advocate for people affected by diabetes, convincing the world’s leaders of the urgent need for concerted action to turn the tables on the world’s chronic disease pandemic.(1,2) Yet our reasons for existing are as they were upon IDF’s inception in 1950. We are driven by the needs of our constituents: people with diabetes. (The latest figures, published in fifth edition of the IDF Diabetes Atlas, confirm that our constituency keeps growing – at the vertiginous rate of more than 7 million new cases per year. (3) We currently serve more than 6% of the world’s population – not a cause for celebration.)