Under the aegis of the European Regional Offices of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) a joint action programme to contest the growing burden of diabetes has been drawn up. The St. Vincent Declaration (1980) specifies targets for diabetes care, the reduction of complications, the integration into society and the education of the diabetic individual. The WHO/IDF have drawn up a data set to monitor progress in reaching the targets of the St. Vincent Declaration. The objective of the project Diabetes Monitoring System is to examine the possibilities for implementing a longitudinal-based and standardised diabetes monitoring system in the Netherlands. Although computerised recording systems for diabetes are seldom used and the agreement with the WHO/IDF data set varies substantially, the willingness of physicians to participate is clearly sufficient. This principally explorative project will hopefully lead to the implementation of a monitoring system in which a widely accepted data set is recorded to establish improvements in quality of care and to perform epidemiological research.