Islamabad: The federal health authorities on Friday asked provinces and federating areas to endorse the National Mental Health Policy 2026-35 within 45 days as the Pakistan Global Mental Health Summit concluded with the adoption of the Islamabad Declaration.
Minister of State for National Health Services Dr Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Bharath said the two-day summit was not an end but the start of a practical national journey to make mental-health care accessible across Pakistan.
The summit, held in Islamabad on October 1 and 2, brought together national and international experts, policymakers, UN agencies, development partners, academia, civil-society representatives, young people and people with lived experience of mental-health conditions.
The Islamabad Declaration described mental health as a shared global responsibility and said Pakistan would seek to provide leadership through practical measures, partnerships and its newly launched national policy framework.
Dr Bharath said around 32 million Pakistanis required mental-health care, but the treatment gap stood at about 95 percent, leaving most people without the support they needed.
He said these figures represented millions of individuals and families whose lives were affected by untreated conditions, adding that mental illness was treatable and recovery was possible when care was timely, affordable and available close to home.
He said the summit had achieved three important milestones: the launch of the National Mental Health Policy 2026-35, national programmes for child and adolescent mental health through schools, and adoption of the Islamabad Declaration for Global Mental Health.
The minister said provinces and federating areas had been requested to submit written endorsements within 45 days so that the policy and summit commitments could be implemented on the ground.
He announced that a National Hub of Excellence for Mental Health would be established with provincial partners as a technical platform to translate evidence into policy, build institutional capacity and support the mental-health workforce.
The hub would help connect research, training, service delivery and policy, while supporting the development of standards, monitoring indicators and implementation plans, he added.
Dr Bharath said the government would prepare a sustainable, costed and time-bound implementation and monitoring plan during the next 12 months in consultation with provinces and other stakeholders.
Over the next two to three years, he said, the focus would be on expanding mental-health services through primary healthcare and community-based care, increasing the workforce including school psychologists, and incorporating mental health into laws, budgets, health-benefit packages and health-data systems.
He said mental-health care must become part of the basic health system and educational institutions in every province and federating area instead of remaining concentrated in specialised hospitals in major cities.
Prof Dr Mohammad Iqbal Khan, Vice Chancellor of Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, said the formulation of the national policy was an important achievement, but its implementation would be the real test.
He said sustained political commitment was essential to turn policy into improved services, particularly for people living in remote and underserved areas. He called for mental health to be treated as a core health-system priority, rather than a separate or peripheral programme.
Prof Khan said universities, teaching hospitals and professional institutions could provide the evidence, training and innovation required for implementation, but government leadership, financing and clear accountability were needed to ensure results.
He stressed the need for a coordinated national approach to develop psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, counsellors, occupational therapists and primary-care providers, with defined training pathways and roles.
He also called for a government-academia-professional partnership to map workforce and training capacity, develop a long-term workforce strategy, align training with deployment needs and publish an annual implementation scorecard.
The World Health Organisation said only about five percent of Pakistan’s population had access to mental-health services, while the country had approximately 0.19 psychiatrists per 100,000 people, compared with an average of seven per 100,000 in high-income countries.
WHO said investment in treatment for depression and anxiety could yield a four-fold return through better health and productivity, underlining that mental-health spending was both a health and economic priority.
Dr Syed Usman Hamdani, Founding Director of the Global Institute of Human Development at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, said Pakistan had shown through research, implementation science, policy development and community-based innovation that effective mental-health care could be delivered through primary healthcare, schools and communities.
He said the challenge now was to take proven, evidence-informed approaches beyond pilot projects and provide them at scale, particularly for children, young people and underserved communities.
Dr Bharath thanked WHO, UNICEF, the Global Institute of Human Development, provincial governments, development partners, youth representatives and people with lived experience for their contributions, and urged all partners to work behind one national action plan.
Ends