World Diabetes Day 2025: Advocates stand together for Access, Affordability, and Action

16 Nov 2025, 7:39 p.m. in #insulin4all USA, Global Stories by T1International

On November 14th, 2025, World Diabetes Day, #insulin4all advocates across the globe came together to make a demand: that they be able to access and afford their life-sustaining medications. Recent data showed that 1 in 3 people around the world rationed their insulin due to cost in 2024. At T1International, we know that #insulin4all is a reasonable and dignified demand– and yet, we are still too far from achieving a reality where everyone, no matter where they live, has access to the medicine and supplies they need to survive and flourish.

T1International Advocates organized events for #insulin4all in Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Nigeria, and the states of Connecticut, Indiana, Ohio, Washington, and the country’s capitol Washington, D.C. These events pushed for World Diabetes Day 2025 to truly embody the values of access, affordability, and action. Although the advocates organizing these events had never met in person, or even been to one another’s countries, they shared a profound journey together as they organized these events.

The groups of advocates who organized events for World Diabetes Day know that patients have the power to generate tangible changes for our community, and that our collective action gets governments to take action and manufacturers to increase affordability and accessibility. These groups had been meeting for months as part of T1International’s 2025 World Diabetes Day Mobilization, a training series that gave them the skills and confidence to plan major events in their communities. In the training series, advocates learned the skills necessary to recruit participants, engage the media, and generate press about their events. They learned about crafting effective messages, drafting press releases and media advisories, pitching reporters, and more. Seasoned and new advocates had the opportunity to practice their stories and collaboratively edit their work together in order to strengthen their effectiveness. They learned about the challenges in each others’ countries and contexts, exploring what it means to be in solidarity across borders and time zones.

T1International advocates from India, Pakistan, Tanzania, and the United States also shared stories and calls to action on a World Diabetes Day webinar, learning more about the fight for access and affordability, sharing lessons from successful campaigns around the world, and growing in knowledge and understanding of how this fight looks in different places. Pakistan #insulin4all Advocate Sobia shared:

“The solution is clear: people living with diabetes must have access to a full range of insulin types, short-acting, long-acting, and analog insulin, at an affordable price. Treatment should never be based on what's cheapest or most commonly available, but on what works best for each individual. Governments, healthcare systems, and insulin manufacturers need to work together to make all types of insulin accessible and affordable everywhere in the world. Everyone deserves the right to personalized diabetes care, not a one-size-fits-all approach that puts lives at risk.”

If you missed it, you can watch the webinar here.

Woven through all of these events, whether in-person or online, was the clear message: we will stand together across the world, learning from and supporting each other to fight for #insulin4all, until every person, no matter where they live, has access to the medicine and supplies they need to survive and flourish.

Here are some highlights from World Diabetes Day 2025:

T1International's South Africa #insulin4all Chapter sent in a petition calling on the government to prioritize the treatment of type 1 diabetic patients. Razana offered essential information on diabetes and advocacy to patients at HJ hospital and Johannesburg and to the press.

In Sierra Leone, Help Madina, We Care Sierra Leone, and Diabetes Specialist Nurse UK held a dialogue with traditional healers in Makeni to promote timely diagnosis and treatment of diabetes in the region, as well as a health screening and awareness event, and a storytelling event.

Diabete et Mechant, T1International’s Partner in France, in front of le Pantheon in Paris, protesting Sanofi price policy, after a World Diabetes Day meeting at the 5th district townhall.

Pakistan #insulin4all Advocates with our Partner Meethi Zindaghi came together in three major cities for a “Ride for Insulin Heroes” cycling event.

In Egypt, advocates drafted and circulated a petition calling on Abbott to lower prices of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). The petition received over 1500 signatures both from in the country and across the world. Ali also spoke about T1International to over 100 participants of “DiabeTips” event in Cairo for World Diabetes Day.

Our advocacy partner Network of Persons Living with Diabetes in Nigeria created a song campaign calling on the Ministry of Health to include insulin in the budget agenda to increase affordability and accessibility across the country.

Advocates in Brazil came together to write an op-ed on public pharmaceutical manufacturing of insulin in the country. The op-ed evaluates the public pharma landscape in Brazil and highlights a path forward for more accessible and affordable insulin throughout the region and was published in English, Portuguese, and French.

T1International Partner The Kivu Diabetes Center, in collaboration with people living with diabetes from the rural areas of Murhesa and Kavumu, celebrated a meaningful day of learning and exchange in Democratic Republic of Congo with more than 150 participants living with diabetes joined the discussions.

Advocates across the United States held events in support of World Diabetes Day:

T1International’s Ohio #insulin4all Chapter held a strategy retreat to make a plan to push for public pharma, followed by an op-ed writing party to push their state legislators to act on patent reforms that would free the insulin patent from its decades-long three-manufacturer monopoly.

Advocates in Indiana, Oregon, and Washington, DC held informational calls and fundraisers to raise critical funds for the #insulin4all movement. Indiana #insulin4all Chapter Leader, shared in the press about the work of T1International and the insulin access and affordability crisis

T1International's Washington #insulin4all Chapter held a creative “tree decorating” event where they made ornaments for a tree using diabetes supplies, to publicize the cost of these supplies, to later deliver to the State House in a demonstration of the need for more affordable supplies.