Strategic Partners

Operation Smile is an organization in consultative status with the UN through its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This level of accreditation allows Operation Smile to participate in UN events, including the United Nation’s General Assembly, the Commission on the Status of Women and the World Health Assembly, where Operation Smile lends its expertise in congenital conditions, cleft care, surgical care, health systems strengthening and other areas.  

Operation Smile is an active participant in the World Health Organization’s Acute Care Action Network (WHO ACAN), working towards a global strategy and action plan to advance emergency, critical and operative care around the world. 

With the Global Alliance for Surgery, Obstetrics, Trauma and Anaesthesia Caree (G4 Alliance), Operation Smile works to ensure that every individual, regardless of location or circumstance, has access to safe, timely and affordable surgical and anesthesia services. 

As an active member of this organization, Operation Smile helps advance global health priorities with other advocates, implementers, policymakers and stakeholders. Activities of Operation Smile at the Global Health Council include multilateral engagement, health system strengthening, global health equity, non-communicable diseases, and maternal, newborn and child health.  

Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD) is a highly respected global alliance of more than 40 corporations and nonprofit organizations leading the development and championing of high standards in medicine and medical equipment and services donations. 

The Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery (GICS), which includes non-governmental organizations, academia and individual members from around the world, works to define and promote optimal resources for children’s surgery in resource-poor regions of the world. Operation Smile is one of leading providers of children’s surgical care globally involved in GICS. 

Operation Smile is a signatory to the Global Health Equity Pledge of the Global Health Equity Network of the World Economic Forum. Operation Smile has participated in exchange sessions and supported advocacy efforts to advance oral health. Operation Smile will engage further as part of the World Economic Forum. 

The World Cleft Coalition (WCC) is an alliance of international non-governmental organizations working to address the need of patients with cleft lip and palate and engaging in long-term local capacity-building partnerships. The group has collaborated on the development of an agreed set of globally recognized minimum core practice and best practice guidelines for safe and comprehensive cleft care. 

Operation Smile and the Global Surgery Foundation partner under the umbrella of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in the expansion of the provision of surgical obstetrics and anesthesia care for all.   

Operation Smile is a partner organization to this group of international experts from the Southern African Development Community Technical Expert Working Group on Surgery (SADC), charged by their ministries of health with advancing strategies to enhance implementation of surgery as part of national health strategies and plans. 

Operation Smile works with the American Heart Association (AHA), a non–profit organization in the United States, to provide training courses in Basic Life Support (BLS), Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) for health workers across the world.

Operation Smile’s partnership with the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) is a critical pillar of Operation Smile’s work to strengthen health systems and increase global health equity. This partnership seeks to increase plastic and reconstructive surgeons in sub-Saharan Africa, support plastic surgery training, provide cleft surgery education and strengthen the surgical ecosystem across selected sub-Saharan African countries.

The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) is a global network of national societies that brings together qualified practitioners of this specialized area of medicine. The WFSA works to make safe anesthesia universally accessible and to improve patient care around the world. 

The College of Anastesiologists of East, Central and Southern Africa (CANECSA) aims to advance education, standards and research in safe anesthesia and critical care for the people of East, Central and Southern Africa. 

The International Collaboration of Peri-Anaesthesia Nurses (ICPAN) facilitates international nurse networking and sharing of practice standards. It encourages collaborative research and evidence-based practice, and advances nursing expertise, voice and participation in global safe surgery initiatives.