Next, countries were asked to rate the types of support offered by WHO related to herbal medicines according to their needs and interests. They were asked to rate the following categories as “not needed”, “needed” or “much needed”: information sharing on regulatory issues; training workshops about national capacity to establish regulations on herbal medicine; general guidelines for research and evaluation of traditional medicines; training workshops about national capacity building on safety monitoring of herbal medicines; provision of databases; arrangement of global meetings; other types of support.

Figure 44 provides a detailed breakdown of the rating of each category of WHO support; as different numbers of countries ranked each category, the figures are given below for clarification purposes (Table 3). While a majority of countries ranked every category as “much needed”, the category cited by the most countries and the one most often ranked “much needed” was the category of information sharing on regulatory issues.

Figure 44. Member States' needs for WHO support

Table 3. Types of support requested by Member States, by level of preference

Of the 24 countries selecting other forms of support, the following were the suggestions reported: assistance with registration of traditional medicine; intellectual property issues; funding to develop a national database of traditional medicine and herbs; scientific references and research; equipment, facilities and funding for research; support and funding for the development of national pharmacopoeias and monographs; support for the development of regional monographs; standard normative system for herbal medicine; a workshop on adverse effect reporting, monitoring and analysis; periodic consultant visits; visit by WHO technical advisors to assess the national situation of medicinal plants; pharmacovigilance and assistance with policy development.