AFR/RC44/R14: Accelerating the development of Mental Health in the African Region The Regional Committee,
Considering resolution WHA 39.25 (1986) of the World Health Assembly which called on Member States to apply preventive measures against mental and neurological disorders and psychosocial disturbances;
Considering resolution AFR/RC38/R1 (1988) which called on Member States to promote the establishment or strengthening of national mental health coordinating groups and improve social infrastructure for the treatment and rehabilitation of the mentally ill;
Considering also resolution AFR/RC40/R9 (1990) which called on Member States to implement community mental health care based on the district health system approach;
Aware that for historical reasons mental health services are poorly developed in most countries of the Region and that there is a high prevalence of psychosocial problems associated with poverty, illiteracy, rapid urbanization, migration, socioeconomic crises, wars, and disasters;
Aware that the adoption of a new strategy which will help to achieve integrated, decentralized mental health services based on primary health care with indispensable community participation is of paramount importance;
Concerned by the fact that Mental Health (4.2) and Prevention and Control of Substance Abuse (4.3.2) are under separate sections in the Ninth General Programme of Work and under different Divisions at Headquarters;
1. INVITES Member States:
(i) to formulate or update national mental health programmes (including child mental health) with primary emphasis on prevention and to include in them psychosocial and behavioural knowledge and technology;
(ii) to review and modernize their mental health legislation;
(iii) to integrate mental health into the general health system and to decentralize mental health service;
(iv) implement mental health as a component of primary health care in the District Health-for-All Package;
(v) to develop adequate training in mental health for primary health care workers;
(vi) to introduce knowledge on the promotion of mental health and the prevention of illness in the teaching programmes of undergraduates, nurses and all health care personnel;
(vii) to provide the mentally ill, as appropriate, with adequate access to health services and psychiatric treatment;
2. REQUESTS the Regional Director:
(i) to support the Member States in developing policy and national mental health programmes and their integration into primary health care;
(ii) to promote and support cooperation and the exchange of information and knowledge between countries of the Region;
(iii) to promote and support research activities aimed at the promotion of mental health and the prevention of mental and neurological disorders as well as development of effective methods for their treatment and rehabilitation;
(iv) to undertake appropriate communications and activities with the Director General so as to put Mental Health as a subject for discussion on the Agenda of the forthcoming World Health Assembly;
(v) to report to the forty-seventh session of the Regional Committee on progress achieved in the mental health programme.
September 1994, 44, 19
