Dear HIFA colleagues, Below are extracts from a WHO news release and a comment from me. Read online: https://www.who.int/news/item/14-05-2026-turning-commitments-into-care--...
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Leaders from government, academia, regulatory bodies and community innovation, and youth networks convened at the World Health Summit Regional Meeting in Nairobi on 29 April 2026, to advance the role of traditional medicine as a core pillar of primary healthcare and universal health coverage in Africa. The high-level session, “Traditional Medicine as Part of the Solution: Reimagining Primary Health Care and Universal Health Coverage in Africa,” was sponsored by the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre and its newest Collaborating Centre partner, Charité Competence Center for Traditional and Integrative Medicine (CCCTIM) at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin...
Panelists called on African leaders to move beyond symbolic endorsement of traditional medicine and instead demonstrate political commitment through budgeted and funded national workplans, embedding traditional medicine within formal government and business structures. While reaffirming that the integration of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine into national health systems remains the ultimate goal, panelists highlighted the need for context-relevant evidence generation, robust regulation and collaboration, alongside the development of intellectual property rights and protocols that reflect Africa’s priorities and protect its knowledge systems...
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COMMENT (NPW): In October 2025 WHO published its Global traditional medicine strategy 2025-2034 [ https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240113176 ] with a vision for 'universal access to safe, effective and people-centred traditional, complementary and integrative medicine'. The key word here is 'effective'. The strategy calls for 'an international research agenda on traditional medicine focusing on scientifically rigorous and high impact research'.
One aspect that is missing from the strategy is evidence synthesis and systematic review, which is a key component of the global evidence ecosystem but I cannot see it mentioned in the strategy. TThat said, the strategy commits WHO to 'Develop WHO guidance on the integration of safe and effective TCIM into national health systems', and WHO has a rigorous approach to guideline development based on evidence synthesis. I would be interested to know if WHO has identified specific traditional medicine interventions in international clinical guidelines.
I look forward to your comments: hifa@hifaforums.org
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org