The Ministry of Ayush, Government of India, and the WHO finalized a Donor Agreement. The agreement, signed by Arindam Bagchi, India’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, and Dr. Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage and Life Course at WHO, establishes the financial terms for supporting the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre (GTMC) in Jamnagar, Gujarat.
The Government of India will contribute $85 million over the next decade (2022-2032) to aid the operations of the GTMC. The agreement highlights the Centre’s role as a crucial knowledge hub for evidence-based traditional complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM), with the goal of enhancing global health and well-being.
The ministry of Ayush has previously worked with the WHO on several initiatives, including developing benchmark documents for Ayurveda, Unani, and Siddha systems, creating WHO terminology for these practices, introducing a second module in the Traditional Medicine Chapter of the International Classification of Diseases-11, and supporting the M-Yoga app and the International Pharmacopoeia of Herbal Medicine (IPHM). As reported by biospectrumindia.com, these efforts, along with the collaboration on the WHO GTMC, aim to elevate the global profile of traditional medicine.