Operationalizing the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy

At the 78th World Health Assembly in May 2025, Member States formally adopted the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034, marking a pivotal shift in global health systems thinking. Following this momentum —and building on the dialogue initiated at the World Health Summit Regional Meeting in Delhi —this session convenes high-level stakeholders to explore actionable pathways for implementing the strategy at national and regional levels.

Where the Delhi session highlighted the urgent need for trust, evidence generation, youth engagement, and cross-cultural collaboration, this session takes the next step: unpacking how governments, regulators, clinicians, and communities can translate strategic vision into practice. It focuses on embedding traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) into existing health systems through strengthened governance, intersectoral coordination, pragmatic regulation, and investment in workforce development.

The session will surface lessons from country experiences —particularly Africa and Europe —while exploring institutional innovation, including integrated hospitals and regulatory models. It will also reflect on the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in guiding implementation, and how shared knowledge, digital infrastructure, and context-sensitive scientific methods can enable scale.

With an eye on the upcoming WHO Global Traditional Medicine Summit in December 2025, this session serves as a bridge between global policy and grounded action. It invites leaders to move beyond commitments and articulate clear, credible steps to make people-centered, evidence-informed T&CM a fully integrated part of 21st-century healthcare.