WHO has developed these general guidelines in response to the question: what types of academic research approaches and methods can be used to evaluate the safety and efficacy of traditional medicine? The guidelines consist of sections on herbal medicines, traditional procedure-based therapies, clinical research, and related issues including ethics, education and training, and surveillance systems.

The specific objectives of the guidelines are to: harmonize the use of certain accepted and important terms in traditional medicine; summarize key issues for developing methodologies for research and evaluation of traditional medicine; improve the quality and value of research in traditional medicine; and provide appropriate evaluation methods to facilitate the development of regulation and registration of traditional medicine.