Reflections from the 6th Global Mental Health Ministerial Summit in Qatar

The 6th Global Mental Health Ministerial Summit was held in Doha, Qatar this year on the theme of transforming mental health through investments, innovations and digital solutions. The summits have historically been a platform to strategise on converting commitments on mental health into action and so, given the strong political declaration on NCDs and mental health emerging from UNGA just days prior, the event could not have been more timely. 

United for Global Mental Health and the Global Mental Health Action Network were actively involved in the planning and delivery of the 2-day event, which began with an inspiring keynote speech from HE Mansoor bin Ebrahim, the Minister of Public Health in Qatar. 

The Plenary session on Day 1 had two critical discussions take place; a reflection of past global ministerial mental health summits followed by a discussion on the implications of the UNGA High Level meeting on NCDs and Mental Health 2025. At the former, a United for Global Mental Health staff member talked about how the previous summits had paved the way for the wins reflected in the political declaration of the high-level meeting.

In the latter, the governments of Qatar, Phillipines, Egypt, Bahrain and the Regional director of WHO EMRO discussed how commitments on priority areas such as deinstitutionalisation of mental health care, the social and commercial determinants of mental health, suicide prevention and child and youth mental health could be transformed into national action. 

Day 1 ended with a series of workshops, the last of which focused on empowering communities and developing effective stigma reduction campaigns. Network members Taha Sabri and Sue Baker and WHO EMRO’s Dalia Elasi spoke passionately about the integration of stigma reduction initiatives across all national mental health strategies and policies.

The new WHO EMRO Regional Coalition for Mental Health and Substance Use Prevention, hosted in partnership with the Global Mental Health Action Network, was spotlighted as an example of successful stakeholder engagement utilising digital tools to strengthen connections and capacity-building efforts.  You can learn more about the Regional Coalition and join over 270 members here.   

Day 2 began with a workshop on accelerating action for child & youth mental health co-organised by United for Global Mental Health and UNICEF, covering a range of topics including how to build child and youth friendly mental health systems, innovative digital and non-digital mental health solutions and how to overcome common implementation challenges. 

The day also consisted of a discussion on challenges faced by the mental health workforce, and a high level meeting of ministers, delegations and heads of international organisations, where mental health was acknowledged as a priority issue and the commitments made in the political declaration of the high level meeting were reiterated. The day closed with reflections from each of the sessions and an announcement that Rwanda would be hosting the next summit in October 2026.  

The purpose of the summit was to have tangible discussions on transforming mental health and the summit more than delivered. It brought governments, technical experts, funders, UNOs, civil society and people with lived experience of mental health conditions together, covered a variety of important mental health priorities and grounded its discussions in operationalising the important commitments made at UNGA in New York in September.

Although the summit has ended, United for Global Mental Health and the Global Mental Health Action Network will continue working to ensure that the impacts of these global gatherings are felt at the country level.