Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much Official Development Assistance funding was provided to mental health projects in the past three years.

DFID spent approximately £15.3 million over the last three years on bilateral projects exclusively focused on improving mental health services and on related research.

DFID funding has, for example, helped Ghana establish a Mental Health Authority and train 3,953 health workers, and generated evidence on how to strengthen mental health care in poor countries. A further £117 million was provided to improve the health of people affected by the conflict in Syria, and a core part of this is psychosocial support and counselling. In addition DFID’s wider work including our support to multilateral health organisations contributes to improving mental health care.