By Dr Quaid Saeed Akhunzada
Pakistan is approaching an important moment in its response to mental health. On October 1-2, Islamabad will host the Pakistan Global Mental Health Summit 2026, convened by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination with WHO, UNICEF and national and international partners.
Its theme, “Building Climate-Resilient and Future-Ready Mental Health Systems for Children, Young People and Communities”, captures the challenge facing Pakistan: mental health can no longer be treated as a narrow psychiatric issue.
The urgency is considerable. Across the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, of which Pakistan is a part, an estimated 14.8 percent of the population is living with a mental health condition. Generalised anxiety affects around 10.4 percent and post-traumatic stress disorder about 7.2 percent, figures markedly higher than global averages.
Conflict, displacement and instability, affecting nearly 85 percent of the region’s population, are major drivers. In Pakistan, rising living costs, unemployment, poverty, economic insecurity, violence, terrorism, displacement, family disruption and rapid urbanisation increase exposure to psychological stress while weakening protective social networks.
These pressures are closely linked with education, housing, employment and social exclusion. WHO’s latest estimates put the number of people living with a mental disorder globally at nearly one in seven, or about 1.2 billion people, yet only around one-third of people with depression and 40 percent of those with psychosis receive any formal care. Pakistan’s treatment gap exists within this wider global failure.
Substance use is another major concern. Across the region, it is estimated to affect roughly four percent of the population, while Pakistan has been identified among countries reporting high rates of substance use. Pakistan’s last national survey, conducted in 2013, found that 6.7 million people aged 15 to 64 had used illicit drugs in the preceding year, including around 4.25 million who were dependent and required structured treatment.
More than a decade later, Pakistan still has no updated national estimate. This is a serious data gap, which the Summit’s youth substance-use session and the proposed mental health data dashboard should begin to address.
Pakistan must also prepare for the growing mental-health consequences of climate change. Floods, extreme heat, drought, displacement and the loss of homes and livelihoods can cause trauma, grief, anxiety, depression and other psychological harms.
WHO has warned that climate change can increase emotional distress, anxiety, depression, grief and suicidal behaviour, while the Eastern Mediterranean Region is particularly vulnerable to climate-driven emergencies. For Pakistan, climate resilience must therefore mean more than protecting hospitals and infrastructure.
It must include continuity of mental-health care during disasters, psychosocial support for affected communities, protection of essential medicines, trained emergency workforces, and the integration of mental health into climate adaptation and disaster-risk planning. The Summit’s planned launch of a policy on climate-resilient mental-health systems is therefore highly significant.
This is the case for treating the Summit as more than a ceremonial event. Its agenda is designed to produce commitments rather than communiqués: the launch of Pakistan’s new National Mental Health Policy, a companion policy on climate-resilient mental-health systems, a South Asia child and adolescent mental-health report, and, on the closing day, the Islamabad Declaration on Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
The agenda also includes a youth substance-use framework and an implementation roadmap. Bringing federal ministries, provincial health departments, the Higher Education Commission, the Anti-Narcotics Force and disaster-management authorities together acknowledges a structural weakness that has undermined past efforts: health was devolved to the provinces in 2010, but mental-health policy has often stalled where federal ambition meets provincial capacity.
What, then, should emerge from the Summit? First, a costed implementation roadmap for the new National Mental Health Policy, with clear federal and provincial responsibilities and measurable indicators.
Second, screening and management of mental-health and substance-use disorders should become part of Pakistan’s universal health package. The country needs a practical system that brings care beyond psychiatric hospitals to communities, primary healthcare facilities and district services, while strengthening specialist treatment for severe and complex illnesses.
Third, Pakistan needs an integrated Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Prevention Framework spanning families, schools, communities, digital platforms and health services. Fourth, it needs a Climate and Mental Health Action Framework linking mental-health services with climate adaptation, disaster preparedness and emergency response.
Pakistan should also use the Summit to contribute to the wider Eastern Mediterranean agenda. WHO has identified substance use as a regional flagship priority, while its mental-health framework calls for stronger governance, community-based care, prevention, human-rights protection, workforce development, surveillance and research.
None of this guarantees results. Pakistan has had mental-health policies before. The test of 2026 will be whether this Summit produces something different: a funded, measurable and resilient mental-health system that reaches people before crisis, withstands climate and humanitarian shocks, addresses substance use alongside mental illness, listens to lived experience and supports people throughout treatment and recovery.
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