The World Health Organization estimates that nearly half of all abortions worldwide remain unsafe, often performed by untrained individuals or in substandard conditions. These procedures can lead to severe haemorrhage, infection, or organ damage—complications that are almost entirely preventable when care follows evidence-based standards. To tackle this persistent challenge, the WHO and its Human Reproduction Programme (HRP) have launched an ambitious suite of free digital learning tools to equip frontline health workers with the knowledge and skills needed to deliver high-quality, rights-respecting abortion care.
A New Global Standard: 57 Competencies for Family Planning and Abortion Care
In collaboration with midwives, physicians, and regional experts from every continent, HRP and WHO have published the Family Planning and Abortion Care Toolkit—a landmark set of 57 core competencies. These competencies spell out exactly what primary-care providers should know and be able to do, from pain management and complication recognition to respectful counselling and contraception linkage.
Unlike traditional curricula that vary widely between countries, the toolkit offers a universal benchmark that can be adapted for pre-service education, in-service training, or lifelong learning. “The goal is measurable outcomes, not just hours spent in a classroom,” explains Ulrika Rehnström Loi, midwife and WHO technical officer. “What matters is that a health worker can confidently provide safe, dignified care when a woman walks through the door.”
Free Online Courses Bring WHO Guidelines Directly to Practitioners
Building on the competency framework, the WHO Academy, working closely with HRP, has rolled out the first two modules of a comprehensive abortion care learning package. Both courses are self-paced, mobile-friendly, and completely free.
The flagship course, Medical Abortion, distils the latest WHO Abortion Care Guideline into six hours across four practical modules: pre-abortion assessment, pharmacological fundamentals, administration and follow-up, and health-system integration. Upon completion of each module, participants earn an official WHO Academy Award of Completion—a credential already being used for professional development and licensing in several countries.
A second course, Integration of a Human Rights-Based Approach to Comprehensive Abortion Care, equips providers and policymakers with tools to eliminate stigma, ensure confidentiality, and address barriers faced by adolescents, migrants, and marginalised groups.
Feedback from the field has been immediate and positive. Nani Kaway, a registered nurse in Nepal, says the medical abortion course allowed her to align her practice with both national law and the most current global evidence. “I now feel fully prepared to offer quality services and to train others,” she reports. Two additional courses, on surgical methods and post-abortion care, are already in production and expected in 2026.
Pocket-Sized Support: Apps and Handbooks for Real-World Practice
Digital learning is complemented by practical bedside tools. A new mobile app guides clinicians step-by-step through patient assessment, flagging individual risk factors, generating personalised checklists, and even scheduling follow-up visits or specialist referrals. Meanwhile, the Clinical Practice Handbook for Quality Abortion Care translates dense guideline text into clear algorithms, dosage tables, and counselling prompts that fit in a lab-coat pocket.
Together, these resources create an ecosystem where evidence-based care is no longer limited to well-funded urban hospitals. A rural midwife in sub-Saharan Africa or a general practitioner in Southeast Asia can now access the same standards as colleagues in high-resource settings—at zero cost and in multiple languages.
By removing barriers to knowledge, WHO and HRP are not only preventing death and disability; they are empowering health workers to uphold dignity, equity, and human rights in one of the most stigmatised areas of medicine. As digital access continues to expand, these tools promise to make unsafe abortion a relic of the past—one trained provider at a time.
