International Diabetes Federation

Founded to represent the interests of the growing number of people with diabetes in Zimbabwe, alongside those at risk of developing the condition and the healthcare givers who support them, ZDA has grown into a nationwide network spanning ten provincial branches. Based in Belvedere, Harare, the Association exists to give structure and a collective voice to a patient community that, in Zimbabwe's under-resourced health system, has historically had to fend largely for itself. ZDA's mission is to improve the spiritual, physical and socio-economic welfare of people with diabetes across Zimbabwe and the wider sub-Saharan Africa region, treating diabetes management as more than a medical issue alone, but as something that touches every part of a person's life and dignity.

ZDA sits within a much larger global structure as Zimbabwe's representative member of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), an umbrella body bringing together 251 national diabetes associations across 158 countries and territories, and marking 75 years leading the global diabetes community. This membership connects Zimbabwean patients and healthcare workers to international best practice, training resources, and advocacy platforms that a standalone local charity could never access alone.

Diabetes is advancing quickly across Zimbabwe, and the country's data systems are struggling to keep pace with it. Official IDF figures for 2024 record roughly 106,500 adult cases of diabetes in Zimbabwe, out of a total adult population of just over 8.3 million people, a recorded prevalence of 1.5%. ZDA itself believes this figure to be a significant underestimate, and puts the true prevalence closer to 10 people in every 100, a gap that reflects how much diabetes in Zimbabwe goes undiagnosed until symptoms become severe.

The burden falls heavily on families with the least capacity to absorb it. Children are increasingly among those affected, often going undetected until a medical crisis forces a diagnosis, leaving parents, frequently single mothers working informal jobs, to manage complex daily insulin routines and specialised diets on very limited incomes. Zimbabwe's continuing economic pressures compound the problem further: essential diabetes medicines, particularly insulin, are frequently out of stock in the public health system, forcing patients to rely on associations like ZDA simply to access the medication they need to survive. A national baseline study of diabetes care found that only around a third of essential diabetes medicines were consistently available across the health facilities assessed, underlining how precarious access to basic treatment remains for many Zimbabweans living with the condition.

Reinforcing the Case for Action on Diabetes: ZDA works to keep diabetes visible as a national health priority, ensuring the condition is not overshadowed by other pressing public health concerns, and pushing for the policy attention and resourcing the disease's scale actually demands.

Strengthening Local Diabetes Healthcare Education: ZDA supports and strengthens diabetes healthcare education centres at provincial, district and rural level, extending its reach well beyond Harare into the parts of the country where access to specialist diabetes knowledge is scarcest.

Improving Health Outcomes and Preventing Complications: Through education, screening and community support, ZDA works to help people with diabetes manage their condition well enough to avoid the severe complications, including blindness, kidney failure, amputation and cardiovascular disease, that untreated or poorly managed diabetes can cause.

Preventing the Escalation of Type 2 Diabetes: Recognising that prevention is far less costly than treatment, ZDA runs awareness, screening and lifestyle education programmes aimed at slowing the growth of Zimbabwe's type 2 diabetes burden before it takes hold.

Championing a Country Free from Stigma: ZDA actively works to challenge the discrimination and social stigma that people with diabetes in Zimbabwe often face, work carried out in part through its Young Leaders in Diabetes programme, which trains young people living with the condition to become peer educators and advocates within their own communities and schools.

Delivering the Life for a Child Programme: As the country implementing partner for the International Diabetes Federation's Life for a Child programme, ZDA plays a central role in ensuring that children and young people with type 1 diabetes in Zimbabwe, a group with almost no margin for error in their care, receive the insulin, monitoring supplies and education they need to survive and thrive.

Over 30,000 farmers and instructors have received direct training from FfF.

FfF's principles have been passed on to more than 3 million farmers globally through trainees who go on to teach others in their own communities.

Farmers who complete FfF's mentoring programme achieve an average yield of 8 tons per hectare, compared with a Zimbabwean national average as low as 0.4 tons per hectare for small-scale farmers.

In 2020, FfF partnered with the Zimbabwean government to bring its Pfumvudza method to 1.8 million farmers nationwide, contributing to a Presidential Commendation for the organisation's role in national food security during the 2020/21 season.

FfF's founder, Brian Oldreive, personally proved the method's ceiling by farming 3,500 hectares under conservation agriculture and setting a national maize yield record in Zimbabwe that stood for 20 years.

The Zimbabwe Diabetic Association works alongside Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and Child Care and is the national member of the International Diabetes Federation. ZDA has partnered with the World Diabetes Foundation on projects to improve access to and the quality of diabetes care in rural Zimbabwe, working alongside SolidarMed, a Swiss-based health organisation, to decentralise diabetes diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care to primary health facilities in Masvingo Province. ZDA is also an implementing partner, alongside the Zimbabwe Association of Church-related Hospitals (ZACH), in a project run by the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network with World Diabetes Foundation support to improve type 2 diabetes care in faith-based healthcare facilities across the country. That work has additionally brought ZDA into coordination with the Christian Health Association of Zimbabwe (CHAZ), Novo Nordisk, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and Child Care. UNICEF has also engaged ZDA as its local diabetes partner in a regional initiative addressing non-communicable disease prevention, detection, treatment and support in children and young adults.