Health
WHO and Lions Clubs launch three‑year push to expand mental health services in Jordan and Nepal
A new WHO‑Lions Clubs partnership will broaden community‑based mental health care, adding counselling in East Amman and psychosocial corners in ten Nepalese district hospitals, addressing gaps in access to care.
Scaling community care in two low‑resource settings
More than 1 billion people worldwide live with a mental health condition, yet many countries lack basic services. To address this, the World Health Organization and the Lions Clubs International Foundation signed a three‑year agreement in August 2026 to expand mental, neurological and substance‑use care in Jordan and Nepal. The collaboration runs through the end of 2028 and is anchored in WHO’s Special Initiative for Mental Health, which aims to embed community‑based treatment within universal health coverage. Both organisations hope the partnership will demonstrate how global and local networks can jointly reduce stigma and improve help‑seeking.
Targeted services in Jordan’s East Amman and Nepal’s district hospitals
In Jordan, the programme will introduce counselling services in East Amman through a partnership with the Friends of Cancer Patients Association and will add acute secondary care for children and adults at at least one public hospital. In Nepal, psychosocial‑support corners will be set up in ten district hospitals, and the government‑endorsed National Implementation Framework on School Mental Health will be rolled out to strengthen young people’s wellbeing. These interventions aim to expand mental health care through services in existing health facilities.
Building on the WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health
Since its launch in 2019, the Special Initiative for Mental Health has expanded community‑based services across ten countries, giving more than 90 million people new access and providing at least 2 million children and adults with their first mental‑health treatment. The initiative has also supported rights‑based policies, updated essential medicine lists and integrated mental health into emergency preparedness plans. The new WHO‑Lions Clubs partnership adds to this momentum, drawing on the Lions Clubs’ 1.4 million members and its history of awarding over 25 000 grants worth more than US$1.3 billion since 1968. Service‑user experiences will be documented throughout the project to guide future scaling.