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WHO’s Special Initiative for Mental Health aims to ensure universal health coverage for people living with mental health conditions by working to increase access to quality and affordable care for mental health, neurological and substance use conditions for 100 million more people. The Special Initiative for Mental Health is advancing mental health policies, advocacy and human rights; and scaling up quality interventions and services for individuals with mental health, substance use and neurological conditions.
"Over the last four years, we’ve implemented the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health in nine countries and as a result, nearly 6 million more girls, boys, women and men have access to mental health and psychosocial support services in their communities and more than 5,500 individuals have been trained in providing mental health services. We couldn’t achieve these results without an incredible network of over 450 partner organizations and the financial support and advocacy of our donor partners: NORAD, SDC, and USAID."
— Dr Jérôme Salomon, ADG, WHO
"USAID proudly invests in the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health. Among other things, this initiative supports ministries of health in each recipient country to be leaders in mental health services and transformation, promoting long term sustainability and capacity development. USAID is committed to supporting systems-level mental health initiatives: efforts that focus on improving the performance of national mental health systems, in partnership with local governments. These partnerships promote increased access to quality, affordable care for people living with mental health conditions."
— Kathleen Donnell Burrows, USAID
Internal recognition for excellence
In December 2022, WHO’s Special Initiative for Mental Health 3-Level team was honoured with an internal WHO Director General Award for Excellence under the category of WHO Transformation: Recognising exceptional contributions to WHO’s transformation objectives, ONE WHO approach and GPW13.
Cross-country implementing partners’ meeting
The WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health held a cross-country meeting earlier this year (21-23 February) in Istanbul, Türkiye. Implementing partners from all nine Special Initiative for Mental Health countries participated in the meeting — including, representatives from each Ministry of Health, WHO country focal points, local partner organisations, people with lived experiences of mental health and psychosocial conditions, WHO regional mental health advisors and WHO HQ. Countries presented posters of their key achievements over recent years (see below) and exchanged learnings.
Participants discussed common implementation challenges including: (1) Integration with other programs, health conditions, sectors; (2) monitoring and evaluation; (3) task-shifting; (4) reducing tertiary care by increasing acute secondary care and greater community/primary health care services; and (5) mental health financing.
Mid-term Learnings Report
The WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health recently published a Mid-Term Learnings Report comprising a thematic desk review of 158 programme documents and 42 key informant interviews. Interview participants included Ministry of Health representatives, donors and WHO staff and consultants from country, regional and headquarters offices, and national stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations, service user groups and academic institutions.
WHO commissioned Queen Margaret University (Scotland) to conduct this review and collate learnings to date. The review identified 3 areas of strategic action:
- increase political prioritisation and funding for systems-level transformation of mental health services;
- articulate a sustainable, transformed model of care; and
- promote a shared approach to feasible, appropriate and contextualised measures of change.
Transforming national mental health systems: best practices from the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health
The WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health is on its way to achieving its target: ensuring 100 million more people across nine participating countries have access to affordable, quality mental health services. It aligns with recommendations for transforming mental health systems and services as outlined in WHOs World mental health report: Transforming mental health for all.
By involving senior leadership across countries, training the health workforce and rolling-out new mental health services—the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health has placed a spotlight on this often-neglected area of public health and supported countries to take action.
#MentalHealthForAll Episode #57
On Tuesday 28th March, the Global Mental Health Action Network brought together a panel of experts to explore how national mental health services can be transformed. The panellists discussed the key achievements and successes of WHO's Special Initiative for Mental Health and outlined some of the barriers to systems-level change that limited progress in the Special Initiative countries.
Latest achievements from the SIMH implementing countries
Check out the latest achievements and plans for 2023 from each of our implementing countries:
Argentina, Bangladesh, Ghana, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Philippines, Ukraine, Zimbabwe
Regional Updates
Scaling-up mental health and psychosocial services in war-affected regions: best practices from Ukraine
The war in Ukraine has placed additional pressure on an already strained mental health system, disrupting much needed mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services for people in need. However, vital work is already ongoing to strengthen the emergency response system and build up primary and community mental health care provision. Efforts in Ukraine through the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health have already bolstered the capacity of health personnel and community mechanisms to provide quality MHPSS, and streamlined humanitarian responses in the country.
Improving access to mental health services by integrating them into general health services in Nepal
In 2021 only one in four health facilities across Nepal offered mental health services and most of these were concentrated in major cities, leaving rural populations underserved. To address the gap in mental health services, the Government of Nepal launched the National Mental Health Strategy and Action Plan 2020 and implemented the World Health Organization's (WHO) Special Initiative for Mental Health. This included WHO Nepal providing evidence-based guidelines, technical intervention packages, rights-based frameworks, implementation guidance and training to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP). As a result, mental health services were extended to 35 of the 77 districts in Nepal.
WHO is eager to expand our engagement with more partners, to invest in and promote the Special Initiative for Mental Health work. For more information please contact Alison Schafer (aschafer@who.int), programmatic lead for the Special Initiative for Mental Health, or Dévora Kestel (kesteld@who.int), WHO's Director of Mental Health and Substance Use.
