The WHO Academy and Georgia: Online Learning as a Competency Bridge

The WHO Academy in Lyon offers world-class continuing health professional education. PHIG examines what it offers Georgian health workers — and the structural barriers that prevent most from accessing it.

“The WHO Academy is the most significant investment in health professional education in a generation. Its potential to reach Georgian and South Caucasian health workers depends entirely on whether those workers can navigate language, cost, and recognition barriers that were not designed with them in mind.”

Pkhakadze G. WHO Academy Access Analysis. Tbilisi: PHIG; 2025.[1]

Introduction

The WHO Academy, established in Lyon, France in 2020 and fully operational from 2023, is WHO’s landmark investment in continuing health professional education at scale. Using interactive digital learning, simulations, and blended learning methodologies, the Academy aims to reach five million health workers by 2025 and offers courses aligned with WHO technical priorities in primary care, NCDs, mental health, climate and health, antimicrobial resistance, and health emergencies.[2]

For Georgian and South Caucasian health workers, the WHO Academy represents both an opportunity and a set of structural barriers. This analysis examines both dimensions.

Access Barriers for Georgian Health Workers

Despite the apparent accessibility of WHO Academy courses, Georgian health worker uptake remains low. PHIG’s 2024 survey of 312 Georgian physicians and nurses found that only 8% had completed at least one WHO Academy course, and 71% had not heard of the WHO Academy at all.[1]

The primary barriers are language (81% of Georgian health workers rate their English proficiency as insufficient for university-level online education), credential recognition (MoLHSA does not yet formally recognise WHO Academy certificates for CME credit), and digital access (only 62% of Georgian health workers outside Tbilisi have reliable broadband access for streaming video content).[1,3]

Figure 1. Georgian Health Worker WHO Academy Uptake and Barriers: PHIG Survey 2024 (n=312)

Source: PHIG Health Worker Education Survey 2024 (n=312).[1]

Figure 2. WHO Academy Global Reach vs. South Caucasus Share 2023–2024

Conclusion

The WHO Academy is a genuine asset for Georgian health professional development — free, evidence-based, WHO-branded, and aligned with Georgia’s priority health challenges. The barriers are surmountable: CME recognition is a regulatory decision, Georgian-language subtitling is a translation project, and digital access is an infrastructure investment. PHIG’s proposal is to act as the WHO Academy’s Georgian national implementation partner, driving uptake from the current 3% to a target of 25% of licensed Georgian health professionals completing at least one WHO Academy course annually by 2027.

References

1. Pkhakadze G. WHO Academy Access and Integration Analysis: Georgia 2024. Tbilisi: PHIG; 2025.
2. WHO Academy. Annual Report 2024. Lyon: WHO Academy; 2024. Available from: https://www.who.int/whoaccademy
3. Geostat. ICT Access and Usage Survey 2024. Tbilisi: National Statistics Office of Georgia; 2024.
4. GMJ Academy. Catalogue of Accredited Continuing Medical Education 2024. Tbilisi: GMJ; 2024.
5. WHO. Strengthening the Health Workforce Through Education and Training: Global Strategy 2022–2030. Geneva: WHO; 2022.

Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD

Professor of Public Health, David Tvildiani Medical University | Chair, Public Health Institute of Georgia | Founder, Accréditation Sans Frontières

Published on behalf of the PHIG Analysis and Intelligence Team · Tbilisi, Georgia

PHIG

Public Health Institute of Georgia