17 July 2025, Cairo, Egypt – Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean joined with mental health partners and stakeholders to launch the Regional Coalition for Mental Health Promotion and Substance Use Prevention.
The Coalition will provide a platform to align strategies and maximize collective impact. Stakeholders will be able to transform how mental health, psychosocial support and substance use are addressed across the Region and facilitate the urgently needed shift from stigmatization to empowerment, punishment to prevention, isolation to integration and fragmentation to coordinated, impactful action.
Tackling mental health conditions and substance use poses a major challenge at both the global and regional level. In today’s context of shrinking resources and growing needs, unified strategic actions are required. No single sector or agency can address the pressing challenges alone.
The Coalition brings together civil society actors working on the frontlines of mental health and substance use, many led by people who have been directly affected. Their work spans prevention, rehabilitation, advocacy, service delivery and policy reform. People with lived experience are a vital resource and must be engaged with as equal partners and leaders, not as beneficiaries or symbols.
Mental health conditions and substance use disorders exact a devastating toll across the Eastern Mediterranean Region – on individuals, families and communities. One in 6 people in the Region lives with a mental health condition. Substance use is on the rise, with 6.7% of adults affected – above the global average – of whom only a fraction receive treatment. In some countries, the treatment gap for mental health reaches 90%. Stigma contributes to the gap, driving people into silence, marginalization and isolation.
“Today’s launch of the Regional Coalition for Mental Health and Substance Use Prevention marks an important milestone in advancing the commitments we made under the Regional Flagship Initiative on Accelerating Public Health Action on Substance Use. The Initiative, endorsed by our Member States, calls for a decisive shift: from fragmented responses to integrated systems; from institutional neglect to community-based care; from policy made for people to policy shaped with people,” said WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Hanan Balkhy.
The engagement of people with lived experience and their organizations is central to the Regional Action Plan for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies (2024–2030) and the Regional Flagship Initiative, both of which were endorsed by the Seventy-first Session of the Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean in October 2024.
Moving forward, WHO and partners will co-develop a workplan for Coalition activities in support of WHO’s mental health and substance use agenda.
The Mental Health Coalition
Hosted on an interactive platform in collaboration with the Global Mental Health Action Network, led by United for Global Mental Health, the Coalition currently includes over 50 member organizations and experts engaged in activities that range from advocacy, capacity-building and mental health promotion and substance use prevention to service delivery (treatment and/or rehabilitation) and support for policy and legislative development.
The first of its kind in the Region, the Coalition aims to empower people with lived experience to support WHO’s work on mental health and substance use. It will advocate for enhanced political commitment and visibility, the development and implementation of programmes and interventions to combat stigma and minimize discrimination faced by people with mental, neurological and substance use disorders, and the integration of mental health and substance use in the universal health coverage basic package of services delivered through primary health care and in emergency preparedness, response and recovery strategies.
Mental Health Coalition platform: https://gmhan.org/who-emr-regional-coalition