Our strategy
With an impactful history as one of the oldest dentistry-focused organizations, FDI is a leader in the global fight to deliver optimal oral health to all. FDI and its members are committed to expanding awareness of the vital importance of good oral health and its critical role in securing overall health and well-being. As the membership federation models a holistic approach that ties oral health to general health, there is a need to renew our strategic plan that will position the federation to expand its impact, further raising the profile of oral health nationally and globally. The following document lays out FDI’s clear niche across the ever-evolving global health and development sectors, including noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), over the next four years. The linkages between oral health and NCDs, including shared risk factors, underscore the need for a common response – one that FDI is well positioned to lead. FDI and its members are poised to accelerate progress toward Vision 2030: Delivering Optimal Oral Health for All and build on the momentum underway to safeguard the health of people worldwide.
STRATEGIC PILLARS
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE
Goal: Build a robust community of skilled, engaged, and informed dental professionals and partners.
Key objectives
• Provide timely and relevant continuing education opportunities for our members.
• Convene to advance research, knowledge transfer, and build unity around key policies and priorities.
• Provide members with training and networking opportunities.
• Build ties and networks among dental professionals at the regional level.
• Create exchanges of skills and experiences in low-resource settings.
• Launch engaging virtual education opportunities.
ADVOCACY
Goal: Mobilize advocacy efforts to increase oral health literacy and achieve political commitment and action on oral health for all.
Key objectives
• Drive the implementation of Vision 2030: Delivering Optimal Oral Health for All.
• Enhance the advocacy capacity of our members to strengthen and expand the reach of regional and in-country advocacy impact.
• Catalyze partnerships, networks, policies, and programmes to advance oral health as an essential component of general health and well-being.
• Integrate oral health into the prevention and treatment of other NCDs as well as into the universal health coverage (UHC) agenda.
• Equip members and patient advocates with tools, resources, and approaches to effectively influence and shape oral health priorities on a national and global scale.
• Hold governments accountable for commitments made in global resolutions, oral health policies, declarations, action plans, and monitoring frameworks.
• Establish and contribute to alliances and networks that can collectively accelerate political commitment and action on NCDs, broaden the visibility of NCDs on the global agenda, influence global policy, and advance related agendas (e.g., UHC, antibiotic resistance, healthy ageing, etc.).
INNOVATION
Goal: Position the oral health community to ensure the dental profession is responsible, sustainable, and responsive to emerging and evolving technologies in dentistry.
Key objectives
• Promote environmental sustainability within dentistry.
• Vet and advance new technologies in dentistry in service of expanding access to oral health.
• Ensure a balanced approach in the uptake of technology that accounts for the breadth of FDI’s membership, and which is tailored to different regions and environments.
• Provide informed guidance and recommendations around the use and regulation of new and emerging technologies (digitization of health records, use of artificial intelligence, etc.).
• Generate leadership positions on new alternative materials linked to the Minamata Convention on Mercury and ensure that they are safe, accessible, affordable, and durable as well as environmentally sound.