For generations, billions of people have sought healing through traditional medicine while the formal institutions of global health science looked elsewhere. The World Health Organization has now released a ten-year research roadmap — shaped in part by commitments from 27 nations — to close an evidence gap so wide that less than one percent of global health research funding has ever addressed it. The agenda is not merely academic; governments are already making coverage, regulatory, and workforce decisions about traditional medicine, often without the evidence to guide them wisely. What unfold
WHO launches decade-long research agenda to close traditional medicine evidence gap
Billions of people were already making decisions. Governments were too.
Mark
Why does this matter now? Traditional medicine has existed for thousands of years. Why is WHO suddenly making this a priority?
Mimi
Because billions of people are already using it, and governments are already making policy decisions about it—coverage, regulation, integration into health systems. Those decisions are happening without adequate evidence. The gap between what people rely on and what we actually know about safety and effectiveness has become untenable.
Luke
But I want to be careful here. When we say "less than 1% of funding," is that a precise measurement or an estimate? And does it account for the fact that some traditional medicine research happens outside formal health research channels?
Mimi
That's fair. The 1% figure comes from analysis of global health research funding streams. You're right that some research happens in other sectors—agriculture, chemistry, ethnobotany. But the point stands: formal health research has largely excluded these practices.
Mark
What does the WHO actually expect to happen in the next ten years? Are they funding this themselves?
Mimi
No. The WHO set the priorities and created the roadmap. The funding comes from Member States. Twenty-seven countries have already made formal commitments—Tanzania, India, Iran, and others. They're putting money and infrastructure behind it.
Luke
And those 27 countries—are they the ones where traditional medicine is most widely used, or are they a representative sample? Because that shapes what evidence we'll actually get.
Mimi
Mostly they're countries where traditional medicine is deeply embedded in the health system and where governments see it as part of the solution to their health challenges. India, for instance, is anchoring a multi-country consortium. That's significant.
Mark
What happens if the research shows that some traditional practices don't work or are unsafe?
Mimi
That's the whole point. The evidence will show what works and what doesn't. Some practices will be validated. Others won't be. That's how you protect patients—by knowing.
Luke
But there's a political dimension here too, right? Some governments have invested heavily in traditional medicine as part of their identity or their health strategy. Will they accept evidence that contradicts that?
Mimi
That's the real test. The WHO is betting that governments want evidence more than they want confirmation. We'll see.
Mark
What about the Indigenous knowledge piece? How do you research traditional practices without appropriating them?
Mimi
The agenda explicitly calls for Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge holders to be genuine partners in research, not subjects. It also calls for protections on intellectual property and equitable benefit sharing. It's an acknowledgment that this research can't be extractive.
Il Polso
- Billions rely on traditional medicine daily, yet the global research system has treated this vast human reality as though it barely exists — less than 1% of health research funding has ever gone toward understanding it.
- Governments are already embedding traditional medicine into health systems, setting regulations and coverage policies on the basis of incomplete or absent evidence, creating real risk for patients and policymakers alike.
- At WHO's New Delhi summit, 27 nations moved from passive interest to formal commitment — Tanzania pledging TSh 10 billion, India anchoring a multi-country consortium, Iran launching a national clinical trials platform — signaling that this time, political will may match the ambition.
- WHO's 2025–2034 roadmap targets the highest-burden conditions — stroke, cancer, mental health, metabolic disease — while insisting that Indigenous knowledge holders be partners in research, not merely its subjects.
- The agenda draws on one of the largest research prioritization exercises ever conducted in this field, consulting nearly 200 experts across 75 countries, suggesting the foundation is broader and more deliberate than past efforts.
- With all 194 WHO Member States having ratified the underlying strategy, the coming decade becomes a live test of whether rigorous evidence can arrive before the policy decisions it was meant to inform have already been made.
For generations, billions of people have sought healing through traditional medicine while the formal institutions of global health science looked elsewhere. The World Health Organization has now released a ten-year research roadmap — shaped in part by commitments from 27 nations — to close an evidence gap so wide that less than one percent of global health research funding has ever addressed it. The agenda is not merely academic; governments are already making coverage, regulatory, and workforce decisions about traditional medicine, often without the evidence to guide them wisely. What unfolds over the next decade may determine whether ancient practices find their rightful, rigorously understood place within universal health coverage.
Billions of people rely on traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine — yet less than one percent of global health research funding has ever been directed toward understanding where these practices help, where they harm, and where they fall short. This blind spot sits at the heart of a consequential problem: governments are already making regulatory, coverage, and workforce decisions about traditional medicine, often with little or no evidence to guide them. The World Health Organization has now launched a decade-long research agenda, spanning 2025 to 2034, to begin closing that gap.
What distinguishes this roadmap is that governments helped shape it before it was published. At WHO's Second Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in New Delhi, 27 Member States made formal, time-bound research commitments. Tanzania pledged a budget of up to TSh 10 billion by 2030. Cabo Verde, Malawi, Seychelles, and the Federated States of Micronesia each committed to establishing national research centers. India is anchoring a multi-country consortium, and Iran is launching a national clinical trials platform. The agenda followed these commitments — built around what countries said they were genuinely prepared to pursue.
The research deficit the agenda addresses is stark: traditional medicine researchers make up just 0.43 percent of the global health research workforce. The new roadmap prioritizes conditions where evidence could have the greatest impact — stroke, mental health, pain, cancer, metabolic diseases, and reproductive health — and calls for methods suited to real-world complexity, including digital health tools and artificial intelligence. It also insists that Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge holders be genuine partners in research, with protections for intellectual property and cultural integrity built in.
The roadmap emerged from one of the largest prioritization exercises ever undertaken in this field, drawing on analysis of nearly 40,000 research grants, consultations with 199 experts from 75 countries, and Delphi surveys with 235 participants worldwide. All 194 WHO Member States ratified the underlying Global Traditional Medicine Strategy in May 2025. With formal commitments now in place, the next decade will reveal whether evidence can arrive in time to inform the health decisions that governments — and billions of patients — are already making.
Billions of people turn to traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine for care—yet the global health research system has largely ignored them. Less than one percent of all health research funding flows toward understanding where these practices work, where they fail, and where they pose risk. This absence of evidence sits at the center of a vast blind spot in global health policy, one the World Health Organization is now moving to address with a decade-long research agenda launched this week.
The gap is consequential. Noncommunicable diseases kill more than 43 million people annually, and governments worldwide are searching for ways to expand health coverage and reduce that burden. Many of those governments already permit or encourage traditional medicine as part of their health systems. They are making coverage decisions, regulatory choices, and workforce plans based on incomplete information—or no information at all. The WHO's new roadmap, covering 2025 through 2034, identifies where rigorous research could have the greatest impact: stroke, mental health, pain, musculoskeletal disorders, cancer, metabolic diseases, and reproductive health, with particular attention to older people, children, and prevention.
What makes this agenda unusual is that governments shaped it before it was published. At the Second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in New Delhi last December, 27 Member States made formal, time-bound commitments to advance the research themselves. Tanzania pledged a research budget of up to 10 billion Tanzanian shillings by 2030. Cabo Verde, Malawi, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Seychelles each committed to establishing national traditional medicine research centers. India is anchoring a multi-country research consortium. Iran is launching a national platform for clinical trials. These commitments came first; the agenda followed, shaped by what governments said they were actually prepared to fund and pursue.
The scale of the research deficit is stark. Traditional medicine researchers represent only 0.43 percent of the global health research workforce. For decades, these practices sat outside the formal evidence systems that guide policy. Billions of people were already making decisions about them. Governments were already making decisions too. What was missing was the evidence to inform those choices—which treatments work, which do not, which are safe, which offer value to patients and health systems.
Dr. Geetha Krishnan Gopalakrishna Pillai, Unit Head of Traditional Medicine Research, Data and Innovation at the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre, framed the challenge plainly: rigorous research is essential to identify what works and what does not, what is safe and what provides value. The new agenda calls for innovative approaches that reflect real-world complexity—real-world evidence, digital health technologies, systems thinking, and artificial intelligence.
As countries work toward universal health coverage, many are seeking evidence on how to integrate traditional medicine safely and equitably into their health systems. Member States have repeatedly asked for stronger evidence to support decisions on insurance coverage, regulation, service delivery, and workforce development. The WHO argues that investing in traditional medicine research is ultimately an investment in universal health coverage itself. Better evidence can help countries identify effective interventions, avoid ineffective or unsafe practices, improve patient protection, and expand access to quality care.
The agenda also emphasizes that Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge holders must be genuine partners in research, not subjects of it. It calls for stronger protections for intellectual property, equitable benefit sharing, and respect for cultural integrity. The document highlights opportunities for traditional medicine research to address emerging global challenges: antimicrobial resistance, pandemic preparedness, healthy ageing, climate change, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
The roadmap itself emerged from one of the largest traditional medicine research prioritization exercises ever undertaken. The process analyzed nearly 40,000 research grants across 40 funding schemes, examined 116 research institutes in 67 countries, consulted 199 experts from 75 countries, and conducted Delphi surveys with 235 participants worldwide. All 194 WHO Member States ratified the underlying Global Traditional Medicine Strategy in May 2025. With 27 countries now formally committed to advancing the research, the next decade will test whether evidence arrives in time to inform the health decisions governments are making today.
Citazioni salienti
Rigorous research is essential to identify what works, what does not work, what is safe, and what provides value for patients and health systems.— Dr. Geetha Krishnan Gopalakrishna Pillai, WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre
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