The National Mental Health Program (NMHP), officially launched on June 27, 2024, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Lebanon and with the support of the French Development Agency (AFD), the National Mental Health Strategy for the period 2024-2030.
As part of this strategy, the French Development Agency (AFD) has launched a project implemented in coordination with Médecins du Monde, the local addiction NGO Skoun, the Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (ESA) and the WHO, with total funding of 7.375 million euros. The project has three main components, focusing on immediate interventions and long-term capacity building. The first component involves implementing the priority activities defined in the national mental health strategy (PNSM), with a budget of 6.4 million euros. These include improving patient care in secondary health care facilities in Baalbeck, Beirut and Tripoli, and strengthening awareness-raising and prevention efforts at community level.
The second component, financed to the tune of 750,000 euros through ESA, focuses on institutional strengthening of the PNSM. The aim is to strengthen organizational capacities within the Ministry of Health and ensure the strategy’s sustainable integration into national health frameworks.
The third component allocates 225,000 euros to training and capitalizing on mental health strategies in Lebanon, in collaboration with the WHO. This includes support for university training of new mental health experts, and continued efforts to raise public awareness and promote mental health services.
The initiative aims to improve access to mental health and addiction services for around 42,000 people by building the capacity of community and primary health care centers in Beirut, Baalbeck and Tripoli. It also supports an emotional support hotline and suicide prevention services in Lebanon. The project seeks to mitigate the severe impact on mental health of the deepening crises facing Lebanon, by ensuring wider access to essential services and building local capacity to support mental health support efforts, AFD concluded.
