Development Co‑operation Profiles: World Diabetes Foundation
Table of contents
The World Diabetes Foundation is a Denmark-based foundation and was established in 2002 by Novo Nordisk A/S. Since its creation, it has been active in more than 100 countries and has built partnerships with governments, civil society, the private sector, and international agencies. It is also engaged in regional and global advocacy.
The World Diabetes Foundation supports equitable access to diabetes care and prevention in low- and middle-income countries. It focuses on sustainable, scalable and policy-based approaches to help countries meet global targets on diabetes and other non-communicable diseases.
This profile presents verified data on development assistance allocations. See the Development Co-operation Profiles.
World Diabetes Foundation provided USD 19.2 million for development in 2024 through its cross-border funding. Compared to 2023, this amount represents a decrease of 5.9% in real terms. Grants represented 100% of World Diabetes Foundation’s gross disbursements.
World Diabetes Foundation provided all of its development finance bilaterally in 2024, while 53.3% was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions).
In 2024, the World Diabetes Foundation channelled its bilateral development finance mostly through multilateral organisations (USD 10.2 million), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (USD 8.3 million) and universities, research institutes or think tanks (USD 400 thousand).
In 2024, World Diabetes Foundation provided USD 10.2 million to the multilateral system, all of which represented non-core contributions earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose. 100% of total development finance was channelled through United Nations (UN) organisations, the World Bank Group and UN funds and programmes.
The UN system received USD 8.2 million from World Diabetes Foundation in 2024. The most significant UN recipients were the World Health Organisation (WHO) (USD 8.1 million) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) (USD 100 thousand).
In 2024, civil society organisations (CSOs) received USD 8.3 million of the World Diabetes Foundation’s gross bilateral finance, of which 78.7% was directed to developing country-based CSOs. Overall, 43% of total bilateral development finance was earmarked to specific projects or programmes. From 2023 to 2024, the combined core and earmarked contributions for CSOs decreased as a share of bilateral philanthropic development finance, from 57.8% to 43%.
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid.
In 2024, World Diabetes Foundation’s development finance was primarily focused on Asia (excluding the Middle East) and Africa. USD 8.5 million was allocated to Asia (excluding the Middle East) and USD 4.4 million to Africa, accounting respectively for 44.2% and 23.1% of gross bilateral development finance. A sum of USD 2.6 million (13.5%) was unallocated by region, mainly including multi-regional programmes and research grants.
In 2024, 69.5% of gross development finance went to the top 10 recipients, most notably India (30.6%), South Africa (8.4%), and Liberia (5.5%).
Least developed countries (LDCs) received USD 4.6 million (23.9%) of World Diabetes Foundation’s gross disbursements in 2024. World Diabetes Foundation allocated the highest share (35.6%) of its bilateral development finance to lower middle-income countries in 2024, followed by LDCs (23.9%), noting that USD 4.3 million (22.3%) was unallocated by income group.
World Diabetes Foundation allocated USD 2.7 million of its development finance to land-locked developing countries in 2024.
Support to contexts with high and extreme fragility reached USD 5.1 million in 2024, representing 26.5% of World Diabetes Foundation’s bilateral development finance. Of this, contexts with extremely fragility received a sum of USD 1.2 million.
Learn more about the OECD States of Fragility platform.
In 2024, the entirety of the World Diabetes Foundation’s contributions went to social infrastructure and services, with a strong focus on support to health and population (USD 19.2 million).
In the period 2023-2024, World Diabetes Foundation committed 5.9% of screened bilateral allocable development finance to gender equality and women’s empowerment, compared to 11.9% in 2021-2022 and a private philanthropic average of 33.2% in 2023-2024. This is equal to USD 1.2 million of screened bilateral allocable contributions in support of gender equality on average per year. World Diabetes Foundation screens all bilateral allocable contributions activities against the DAC gender equality policy marker (100% in 2023-2024).
Learn more about the DAC Recommendation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance and the DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation in Development Co-operation.
In 2024, World Diabetes Foundation committed all of its contributions to SDG 3 (good health and well-being) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Access the full list of providers at this link: Development Co-operation Profiles.
Official website: https://www.worlddiabetesfoundation.org.
The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, channels of delivery, bilateral unspecified/unallocated/allocable development finance, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.
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