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Mental health: strengthening health and development opportunities in the WHO African Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Carina Ferreira-Borges
Carina Ferreira-Borges*
Affiliation:
Technical Officer Substance Abuse, Regional Office for Africa, Congo, World Health Organization Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, email ferreiraborgesc@who.int; Ferreiraborgesc@afro.who.int
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Abstract

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Despite the efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) to put mental health at the core of the health and development agendas, the underdevelopment of services in Africa is widespread. The adoption of the WHO's Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013–20 at the 66th World Health Assembly in May 2013 provides an opportunity to reshape policy. In the African Region, mental health generally appears to be of low interest and people with mental health conditions are not prioritised. This article describes factors that contribute to this low level of interest and recommends collective action to prioritise mental health on the public health and social development agendas. It is also a call to all stakeholders to increase financial investment and bring mental health out of the shadows.

Type
Thematic papers
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 3 - 6
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 2014

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