In response to the public consultation for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) draft Global strategy on tackling oral diseases, FDI World Dental Federation (FDI) joined forces with 65 organizations to submit a joint response.

The current strategy’s vision fully aligns with FDI’s Vision 2030, and it also refers to the three elements of universal health coverage (UHC) — quality, equitable access, and financial protection — in the context of oral health promotion and oral healthcare.

While commending this initial draft, FDI and co-signatories urge WHO to develop a Global strategy that is robust, time-bound, and implementation-oriented encompassing more ambitiously all the different areas that require reform in national health systems for oral health to become an integral element of UHC and noncommunicable (NCD) strategies.

The Global strategy would benefit from a more comprehensive description of all the implications that the associations between oral health, NCDs, and general health have for health systems. The importance of optimizing the oral health workforce to achieve the vision and goal of this Global strategy calls for a specific strategic objective on Oral Health Workforce. Sustainability should also be included as a guiding principle given the implications it has across the different strategic objectives of this Global strategy, and the responsibility that WHO and Member States have towards promoting and implementing a sustainable oral health response.

We stand ready to support WHO and Member States with the development and implementation of the Global strategy, the subsequent 2023 Action plan for public oral health (including its monitoring framework and 2030 targets), and the NCD “best buys” and other recommended interventions on oral health management, reinforcing the Global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs 2013–2030 and its upcoming implementation roadmap 2023–2030.

Read the full submission