BRIDGES
for Comprehensive Abortion Care

Background

Comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are fundamental to health and well-being and to the achievement of gender equality. Yet, access to these services remains out of reach for millions. Within comprehensive SRHR, access to safe abortion remains a particularly neglected area. An estimated 164 million women and girls have an unmet need for safe and effective contraception, half of all pregnancies are unintended and nearly half of all abortions are unsafe.

Building on long-standing experience across sexual and reproductive health and rights, the UN’s Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are working in partnership with Global Affairs Canada to catalyse and strengthen progress towards achieving country-level impact on access to comprehensive abortion care (CAC) within an overall framework of comprehensive SRHR, gender equality and bodily autonomy, using HRP/WHO’s normative guidance and tools.

BRIDGES for Comprehensive Abortion Care

BRIDGES stands for "bolstering rights, inclusion, and gender equality for SRH" and symbolizes both the programme’s purpose and the vital connection between comprehensive abortion care and these fundamental principles.  Recognizing that abortion care relies on, and is an essential part of comprehensive SRH, the initiative supports efforts to strengthen integrated services - including family planning, addressing violence against women, and the generation of evidence to support an enabling policy environment for SRHR.

The BRIDGES initiative includes global level work as well as national, with specific countries including, but not limited to: Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan and Sierra Leone. This work is informed by a feminist developmental approach, integrating innovative, adaptive feminist methods with a strong focus on women's rights and gender equality.