GENEVA — The 79th World Health Assembly on Sunday adopted a resolution urging member states to significantly increase domestic spending on mental health services, following intense floor debate prompted by a landmark study published in The Lancet showing that mental health disorders have nearly doubled worldwide over the past three decades.

The resolution, tabled by a coalition led by the European Union, Australia, and a group of low- and middle-income countries, calls on governments to allocate at least five percent of national health budgets to mental health by 2030. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the Lancet findings as 'a generational alarm bell that demands a generational response,' urging member states to move beyond declarations toward enforceable national action plans.

The Lancet study, released earlier this week, found that the global burden of mental health disorders — including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia — has risen sharply since 1990, with the most pronounced increases in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and among adolescents globally. Researchers attributed the surge to urbanisation, conflict, the long-term psychological aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and persistent under-investment in community mental health infrastructure.

Several high-income countries, including the United States, faced pointed questions from delegates about their domestic mental health systems. The US delegation acknowledged ongoing challenges in workforce capacity and insurance parity enforcement but stopped short of committing to specific funding benchmarks. Representatives from India and Nigeria highlighted the acute shortage of trained psychiatrists relative to population, calling on WHO to accelerate its mental health workforce training programmes.

The resolution is non-binding but carries significant political weight as a signal to finance ministries ahead of national budget cycles. WHO officials said the agency would publish an implementation framework by the end of 2026, providing member states with standardised metrics to track progress. Advocacy groups including the Global Mental Health Action Network welcomed the vote, while cautioning that past resolutions on mental health have rarely translated into commensurate funding increases at the national level.