WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health
Children in Al Hol camp, north-east Syria.
WHO’s Special Initiative for Mental Health (SIMH) seeks to address this service and treatment gap, currently in nine countries across WHOs six Regions – Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Jordan, Nepal, Ukraine and Zimbabwe, with the Philippines and Paraguay phasing down. The SIMH works with these countries to transform mental health services, making them universally available in community settings, especially at the primary and secondary health care levels.
As of the end of 2025, more than 90 million more people now have access to newly available services at the local level. For every US $1 million spent, at least 2.6 million more people can have access to newly available mental health services in their communities – a per person cost of just US $0.38.
*Figures are likely higher - countries are only tracking service uptake in selected facilities
Countries
Events
In 2020, One World magazine, run by the Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency (SDC), featured the "WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health" in an article called “A ticking time bomb”. The article includes stories about mental health services in three countries (Bosnia and Herzogovina, Jordan and Somalia) and describes why the Special Initiative is so timely.