In 1991, World Diabetes Day was established by IDF and the World Health Organization. It is hosted every year on November 14. 

Further advances were achieved in 2006, when the UN passed the 61/225 Resolution on Diabetes – the first ever UN Resolution on a non-communicable disease.

It was not until the first UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in 2011 that diabetes started gaining recognition on the global stage. At this Summit, all UN Member States unanimously passed the UN Resolution on NCDs, committing to keep diabetes and other NCDs at the top of the international agenda.

At the end of this same year, IDF launched the Dubai Blueprint on occasion of the World Diabetes Congress in the city. This document, which contains a Declaration based on the contributions that the private sector can make to reduce the impact of diabetes, was conceived as a practical tool for future action on diabetes in all sectors and for multisectoral partnerships.

2013 was a turning point for diabetes and NCDs, with WHO adopting the overarching goal of a 25% reduction in premature mortality from NCDs by 2025 and the nine voluntary targets on NCDs – including a 0% increase in diabetes and obesity prevalence and 80% access to essential medicines and devices by 2025.

At the end of 2013, IDF created the Parliamentarians for Diabetes Global Network (PDGN), an initiative aimed at increasing political attention towards diabetes and exchanging best practices between policymakers from different countries. Two PDGN Summits were organised in 2013 and 2015 to achieve these objectives.

In 2014, the UN assessed for the first time the progress that Member States had made in fighting NCDs, during the second UN High Level Meeting on NCDs. The Outcome Document from this meeting included the following four time-bound commitments:

• Considering setting national NCD targets for 2025 by 2015
• Considering developing national multisectoral policies and plans to achieve the 2025 national targets by 2015
• Reducing risk factors for NCDs by 2016
• Considering strengthening health systems to address NCDs through people-centred primary health care and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2016.

2015 was an important year for public health commitments, with the adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – which include the target 3.4 of a 30% reduction in premature mortality from NCDs by 2030.

2018 was a key year for diabetes advocacy, with the UN High Level Meeting (HLM) on NCDs – which assessed, for the third time, countries’ progress on achieving their international NCD commitments. IDF launched a HLM call to action campaign in November 2017, asking governments to honour their 2011 commitments.

The UN High Level Meeting on Universal Healthcare Coverage took place in New York, in September 2019. IDF launched a call to action in April 2019 which explains why Universal Health Coverage is important and how it affects people living with diabetes.