Active Public Health & Healthcare Mental Health

The Africa CDC Mental Health Leadership Programme

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Associated organisations African Field Epidemiology Network · African Union · Cbm UK · IND Adelard Kakunze 281973 Europe PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding £7.7M
Period Feb 2024 — Feb 2027

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Across Africa, a new five-year programme will embed mental health training into two existing public health leadership initiatives—the Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme and the Field Epidemiology Training Programme—while also supporting university short courses for public health professionals. This matters because mental health services across Africa are severely under-provided. The programme directly addresses a critical gap: a shortage of public health professionals who are trained in mental health theory, practice, and leadership, and a lack of organised advocacy to push for higher prioritisation of the issue. If successful, the programme will strengthen a cadre of public health professionals from across Africa, building a critical mass for advocacy. Crucially, it will also build the capacity of people with lived experience of mental ill health and mental health-focused civil society organisations. By strengthening mutual networks between practitioners and activists, the project aims to collectively enable them to push for higher prioritisation of mental health in Africa—shifting a system that currently operates in a public health silo toward broader, more effective action.

View original technical description
In the face of significant under-provision of mental health services across Africa, the proposed five-year Africa CDC Mental Health Leadership Programme puts into practice the workforce strengthening and advocacy aspects of Africa CDC’s Non-Communicable Diseases, Injuries Prevention and Control, and Mental Health Promotion Strategy (2022 – 2026). The programme embeds a mental health track within two key public health leadership initiatives (the Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme, and the Field Epidemiology Training Programme), while also supporting and replicating university based short courses for public health professionals. By strengthening a cadre of public health professionals from across Africa, who are capacitated in mental health theory, practice and leadership, this project will help build a critical mass for advocacy. But change cannot and should not be delivered within the public health silo alone. The proposed programme will also build the capacity of people with lived experience of mental ill health, and mental health focused CSOs, and will strengthen the mutual networks between practitioners and activists to collectively enable them to push for the higher prioritisation of mental health in Africa.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Adelard Kakunze (EPMC Awardee)Julian Eaton (EPMC Awardee)Mohammed Abdulaziz (EPMC Awardee)Rebecca Babirye (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Development of the Africa CDC Strategic Plan for mental health
Youth Leadership for Mental Health in Eastern Africa
AMARI: African Mental Health Research Initiative
The African Regulatory Leadership Programme
Implementation of an Integrated Care Model for Patients with Multiple Cardiometabolic and Mental Health Conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Original classification

Discretionary Award

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