World’s largest civil society mental health advocacy forum convenes in the Philippines

Last week, the 4th Global Mental Health Advocacy Forum brought together advocates, people with lived experience, policymakers, donors and partners from around the world to rethink how global mental health advocacy is shaped and delivered. Convened by the Global Mental Health Action Network, hosted by United for Global Mental Health and held in local partnership with #MentalHealthPH, the Forum highlighted a clear message: real progress on mental health must be grounded in power, history and lived realities.

Across workshops and plenaries, participants explored urgent issues including suicide prevention, the mental health impacts of climate change, and how to reform services to be more inclusive, rights-based and responsive to people’s needs. Discussions repeatedly pointed to the role of structural inequities, such as stigma, criminalisation, racism and economic exclusion, in shaping mental health outcomes.

The Forum included a range of practical calls to action for advocates and policymakers, from turning global commitments like the UN Political Declaration on NCDs and Mental Health into real change on the ground, to shifting from youth engagement to youth leadership and strengthening peer networks in low- and middle-income countries. For Funders, there was a strong call for longer-term, flexible financing; explicit action to address geographic and structural inequities in funding.

Overall, the 4th Global Mental Health Advocacy Forum converged on a practical message: effective advocacy connects the personal and political – pairing stories with data, centring lived experience as system critique, and building durable coalitions for sustaining long-term change.

The event brought together the world’s largest civil society gathering on mental health advocacy, with more than 300 advocates from over 70 countries meeting in Iloilo City, Philippines, and another 1,500 joining online, under the theme “leave no one behind.”

• Follow this link to learn more about the different sessions held during the Forum and access key take-home messages.
• Access the key policy, advocacy and research recommendations that came from the Forum discussions