Asia is at the forefront of the diabetes epidemic and is predicted to have the highest number of people with diabetes. By the year 2025 it is estimated that one third of the global population of people with diabetes will live in India and China alone. In addition to India and China, South and Eastern Asia includes a number of other countries that combine large populations with relatively high and increasing diabetes prevalence rates, relatively scarce health resources, and low levels of health care funding. In many countries in Asia there are also wide disparities between levels of health care available in different parts of the same country, for example between rural and urban areas. Inevitably this produces great variation in health care systems, costs, funding, and organization of care. As a result in many parts of the region there is a huge amount of unmet need. Although economic factors are very important contributors to this, a number of other factors are also important, for example geography, language, literacy and education, policy, and culture