Discuss the evolution of India's collaboration with WHO in mainstreaming traditional medicine systems, from early bilateral research projects to the establishment of the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine.

India's partnership with WHO on traditional medicine has evolved from modest, disease-specific research collaborations in the 1970s into an institutionalised global architecture, with India today hosting WHO's first Global Centre for Traditional Medicine at Jamnagar [2]. The thread running through this evolution is a single idea — scientific validation as the price of global acceptance.

Phase I — Early bilateral research (1970s)

• WHO's Regional Director for South-East Asia, Dr. V.T.H. Gunaratne, told the Regional Advisory Committee on Medical Research (1976) that the region's traditional medicine wealth "should not be neglected" [1].
• A joint WHO–ICMR team visited the Ayurvedic Trust, Coimbatore to frame a collaborative project on rheumatism [1].
• Its design was significant: first clinically evaluate Ayurvedic claims, then study the pharmacological principles of the curative drugs — an evidence-first template [1].

Phase II — Institutionalisation

• Research capacity was formalised through ICMR–National Institute of Traditional Medicine, Belagavi, ICMR's dedicated traditional-medicine institute [5].
• Domestically, the Ministry of AYUSH emerged as the nodal policy ministry, distinct from ICMR's research mandate, giving WHO a stable counterpart [2].

Phase III — From recipient to global hub

• A Host Country Agreement (March 2022) established the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (GCTM), Jamnagar, backed by an Indian investment commitment, to help countries integrate traditional medicine into universal health coverage [2].
• India committed US$ 85 million to the Centre in 2024, deepening its stake in evidence generation and standards [3].
• India co-hosted the Second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine (New Delhi, December 2025), whose Delhi Declaration advances the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 [4].

The trajectory is thus one of scale and status: from a single joint project on one disease to co-authoring global norms. Sustaining it requires rigorous clinical trials, pharmacovigilance and standardisation so that credibility keeps pace with ambition. Anchored in evidence, India's traditional knowledge can serve both SDG-3 and the wider goal of affordable, pluralistic healthcare.