To mark the centenary of the discovery of insulin, and with the support of the University of Toronto, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Government of Canada co-hosted a Global Diabetes Summit on 14 April 2021. The Summit aimed to raise awareness of diabetes as a global challenge, and to highlight what is being done — and what more needs to be done — to scale-up prevention and treatment efforts within primary health care systems, and across diabetes care services, in a way that is affordable to all.