Supporting use of WHO abortion care tools in communities

To encourage the concrete use of WHO abortion care recommendations in communities, WHO develops tools that consider the realities of the end users, e.g. health workers and programme implementers.

In 2023, WHO launched several products to facilitate the implementation of the clinical recommendations in the WHO Abortion care guideline. The Clinical practice handbook for quality abortion care provides step-by-step guidance on how health workers can concretely perform clinical interventions; support self-management of abortion; and apply human rights principles in their work to deliver abortion care. An app designed as a digital decision support tool harnesses health workers’ knowledge and combines it with WHO guidelines, checklists and patient-specific information, to empower health workers in managing cases.

To encourage national programme managers to use WHO guidance in the field, WHO also collects examples of real-life implementation of its recommendations across clinical management, service delivery and law and policy. In collaboration with the IBP Network, WHO has documented how WHO guidelines on abortion care have been adapted to local contexts and concretely used by local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society organizations (CSOs) in 5 countries. The organizations received financial and technical support to convey their experiences, challenges, lessons learnt, and recommendations to other implementers. The resulting stories, launched in 2022, are inspiring examples of how WHO recommendations can be practically incorporated into locally relevant initiatives, including to design awareness-raising social media campaigns; support self-management of abortion; advocate for legal reform; implement community outreach models; and address stigma among abortion providers.