IDF is gravely concerned by the omission of the necessary monitoring mechanisms to track progress and make governments accountable. 

IDF statement on the Political Declaration of the third high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.

The International Diabetes Federation commends the intention of Member States to scale up and accelerate the implementation of their previously agreed commitments and their recognition that progress and investment have been insufficient to meet target 3.4 by 2030. We welcome the recognition that every person has the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

We also welcome the recognition of the need to strengthen health systems, services and infrastructure to treat people and prevent and control their risk factors in humanitarian emergencies. IDF would like to see the integration of diabetes care as a core component of the humanitarian response when disaster strikes.

The actions and tools required to stem the diabetes epidemic are well-known, and yet, to date, most countries are a long way off meeting their targets.

IDF is gravely concerned by the omission in the Political Declaration of the necessary monitoring mechanisms to track progress and make governments accountable. We are concerned that holding the next HLM in 2025 is too late to identify and take any required remedial action.

Unless governments translate their commitments into concrete actions now, the Political Declaration will have served no useful purpose, and the number of people living with and dying from diabetes, will continue to rise.

A pre-requisite to translating commitments into action is adequate funding of prevention and education programmes, essential medicines and care. We will need to see enhanced multisectoral collaboration to regulate prices, improve the supply chain and strengthen health systems. We will need new financing sources and funding mechanisms to be developed.

IDF regrets Member States’ lack of ambition in this respect and urges them to commit to setting up game-changing financing mechanisms, and to hold the private sector truly accountable in helping prevent diabetes by producing food products consistent with healthy diets and by preventing and managing diabetes through an improvement in the provision of affordable, essential quality medicines and technologies.

IDF's call to action for the UN HLM 2018