Dr Nilesh Buddha, Officer-in-Charge, WHO South-East Asia
Around the world, more than 1 billion people live with a mental health condition – most commonly anxiety or depression – and suicide remains a leading cause of death of young people. In the WHO South-East Asia Region, 208 000 people are lost each year to suicide, and an estimated 289 million people live with a mental, neurological, self-harm, or substance use condition.
This year, the theme of World Mental Health Day, “Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change,” reminds us that people with lived experience (PWLE) of mental health conditions must not only be recipients of care – their voices must help shape the care, policies, and services that affect their lives. PWLE are a source of knowledge and expertise, and a powerful force for change, helping challenge stigma and discrimination, and helping services become more responsive, respectful, and relevant. When PWLE participate as equal partners, mental health systems move closer to putting people first.
The Region has made progress. India has launched a nationwide tele-mental health initiative, and Bangladesh and Nepal are advancing WHO's Special Initiative for Mental Health. Bhutan and Sri Lanka are expanding community services, and Maldives is strengthening suicide prevention. Myanmar has reinforced psychosocial support, and Thailand is pioneering digital tools and workforce development. In 2025, the WHO South-East Asia Region launched a dashboard on mental, neurological, substance use, and self-harm conditions, to help accelerate and strengthen evidence-based planning, monitoring, and evaluation of mental health services and policies.
In 2024, WHO convened a mental health summit, “Voices of People with Lived Experience in the WHO South-East Asia Region,” in Nepal. PWLE and caregivers from eight countries shared perspectives on their rights, including access to health care, employment, housing, and education, and to identify opportunities for policy and systems reform. The resulting Kathmandu Charter for the Rights of People with Lived Experience of Mental Health Conditions is a guide for Member States to develop contextualized national charters of their own. It sets out rights to equal opportunities, autonomy in decision-making, community-based care, and participation in development of policies, programmes, and budgets.
The Region is guided by the Paro Declaration on universal access to people-centred mental health care and services, adopted in 2022. It commits to reorient mental health services around primary health care, to establish rights-oriented community mental health networks, and to combat stigma and discrimination through community empowerment and the active engagement of PWLE. The regional Mental Health Action Plan 2023–2030 puts these commitments into practice, making the involvement of PWLE in policy development, implementation, service evaluation, and research agendas a guiding principle. It further calls on Member States to support independent organisations of PWLE, and establishes regional targets including a 50% increase in government service coverage for mental health conditions, and a 15% reduction in the suicide rate by 2030.
Nevertheless, gaps remain. In many Member States, treatment gaps are as high as 90%. Services are concentrated in urban areas and institutions, out-of-pocket expenditure is high, and stigma and discrimination are widespread. Universal access requires addressing stigma and discrimination, strengthening community participation, supporting families and caregivers, and ensuring that PWLE have a meaningful voice in the design, implementation and evaluation of mental health policies, services, and budgets.
WHO is committed to working with Member States, PWLE, families, caregivers, civil society, health workers, and communities across the Region to transform mental health care and support, building systems where every voice matters, every person is treated with dignity, and everyone can access the mental health care and support they need, when and where they need it.
This World Mental Health Day, together let us commit to listen without judgement, to include without tokenism, to act with compassion and accountability, and to ensuring that real voices lead to real change.