Lifeline Fund: Scaling WHO Basic Emergency Care to save lives
Help us save 50,000 lives. Every year.
Half of deaths in low- and middle-income countries could be addressed with effective emergency care. WHO, Laerdal Global Health and the WHO Foundation are scaling a proven model across Africa. $6.5M remains to complete it. Modeling shows a potential of up to 50,000 lives saved and 300,000 life-altering disabilities prevented each year when implemented in hospitals.
A proven model, rebuilt for scale
WHO developed Basic Emergency Care with the ICRC and the International Federation for Emergency Medicine. It helps first contact health workers (including nurses, doctors and clinical officers) manage life-threatening emergencies in any facility. Since 2016, tens of thousands of health workers in more than 100 countries have been trained, and results show up to a 50% reduction in in-hospital mortality, even in resource-limited environments.
To make the training affordable to scale, WHO and Laerdal have redesigned it together. Interactive e-learning, built with the WHO Academy, cuts face-to-face training from five days to two, so clinicians spend less time away from their patients. A portable Learning Lab, weighing just 7 kilograms, holds everything needed for hands-on skills practice at an estimated 90% lower cost than the equipment used today, and makes refresher training possible at each facility long after the course ends. The rollout is owned by governments, led by WHO, and delivered with the African Federation for Emergency Medicine.
“No one should die for the lack of access to emergency care, an essential part of universal health coverage. We have simple, affordable and proven interventions that save lives.”
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
Reach
Scale
Impact
Recovery
Funding gap
Progress
Already underway
$25M
To train up to 50,000 first contact health workers, in 1,000 facilities across five countries and building evidence for full scale up
$18.5Mcommitted so far
74% of goal
Committed by Laerdal Global Health, the AKO Foundation and Norad
Delivered through a train-the-trainer model, mentoring and ongoing Sustainable Simulation and Skills (S3) using portable equipment that contains everything needed to support hands-on skills training.
Milestones so far
01
Four countries onboarded
Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda joined between Q4 2025 and Q3 2026, with governments owning the rollout.
02
777 health facilities enrolled
Health facilities (clinics and hospitals) across the four countries are signed up for training and portable simulation kits.
03
Online training began
Courses started in October 2026, building on 9,330 health workers already trained in BEC across the four countries.
What one trained team can change
Unconscious and barely breathing, 61-year-old Stephen was rushed to hospital in Uganda with a life-threatening diabetic emergency. The team began with a BEC primary survey and stabilised him through the night. When amputation was discussed, one doctor chose to fight for his leg. Today Stephen walks on both legs and tends his banana farm.
“The doctors and the nurses were so caring. They would ask so many questions, not just about the wounds, but about everything.”
Stephen Wandera, Uganda
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The impact of BEC in real-world situations
Emergency care is a matter of life and death.
Every second, a life is lost to a time-critical emergency. Half of deaths among LMICs, almost 30 million annually, are caused by acute illness, complications relating to trauma, sepsis, and childbirth and road accidents.
Basic Emergency Care (BEC) Training equips first contact health workers with critical structured skills to rapidly assess and manage life-threatening conditions. These include clinical reasoning and practical skills, protocols (e.g. checklists, forms) and provides a standardized, systematic approach to health workers acting fast and well to save lives.
And we know it works, BEC has reduced in-hospital mortality rates by up to 50%, scaling faster, halving the cost and doubling the impact.
BEC training implementation in 17 hospitals across Nepal, Uganda and Zambia saw the number of children dying of emergency conditions decrease by up to 50%.
By focusing on strengthening first-contact response to obstetric and paediatric emergencies those hospitals that had taken part in the programme saw even higher reductions in mortality across two key age ranges;
60.0% reduction in mortality for Under 5s.
59.8% reduction in mortality for Under 18s.
BEC is saving Children's Lives.
BEC provides midwives, nurses, clinical officers, and doctors with crucial skills and a structured approach to rapidly assess and manage life-threatening complications during childbirth. These life-saving skills are sustained through regular scenario-based training and practice.
Evidence shows that BEC implementation can reduce deaths in hospitals by 35–50% by strengthening first-contact response to obstetric and paediatric emergencies. In the trial in Zambia, the hospitals noted a 100% reduction in deaths from postpartum haemorrhage post-intervention.
BEC's proven, innovative curriculum offers a scalable, affordable model for improving emergency readiness across a variety of facilities without requiring costly infrastructure, making it an ideal investment for high-impact results in resource-poor settings.
When dealing with trauma and sepsis, actions in the “first hour” are critical, as delays in referral to health facilities are a major cause of deaths. Currently around 48.9 million cases of sepsis occur each year, resulting in approximately 11 million deaths.
BEC training emphasizes the importance of the immediate stabilization of patients and offers a decision-making framework that helps identify when patients require urgent transfer to higher-level care.
Because BEC is designed for all health workers, it extends sepsis detection and initial management skills beyond doctors — to nurses, midwives, clinical officers — closing critical gaps in greatly improving the patients chance of survival.
Climate-related emergencies are projected to rise. Whether that's mass casualties from floods and storms, burns from wildfires, or severe breathing difficulties from air pollution.
BEC's simple, evidence-based protocols and scalable training model make it ideal for rapid scale-up in climate-vulnerable regions, where health systems must adapt to increasing acute care demands.
BEC helps create reliable referral pathways for climate-related emergencies, tailored for local climate risk, reducing delays in definitive treatment.
Climate change is already driving acute health crises; implementing BEC now will save lives today, while building the acute care infrastructure needed to withstand future climate shocks.
Partner with us
Close the final gap
Laerdal Global Health has committed 50% of the $25M program cost and donated 1,000 Emergency Care Portable Learning Labs. The AKO Foundation and Norad have since joined, bringing committed funding to nearly three-quarters of the total. We are raising the remaining $6.5M through the Lifeline Fund and inviting partners to close this final gap.
This is catalytic capital: your investment will save lives, prevent disability, and build the evidence governments need to sustain and expand emergency care.
