Fig. 4

World Health Organization criteria sorted by score according to completeness of description in African Standard Operating Procedures. The 23 criteria of the WHO's guidelines were classified in a decreasing manner with regards to the proportion of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that described completely each criterion. Each chapter of the WHO's guidelines was labeled with a specific color, for easy reading: 1-membership of the committee: orange, 2-Committee governance: maroon, 3-Independent consultant: grey, 4-Submissions, documents required for review, review procedures and decision making: yellow, 5-Communicating a decision: green, 6-Follow-up reviews and monitoring: blue, 7-Documentation and Archiving: mauve, and 8-Glossary: brown. Criteria 8, 9, 10 and 7 from chapter 4 ranked first, while score of criterion 15 (written procedures specify mechanism for informing the public about REC decision) reached 0 %