Congratulations to President Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND on their 2026 election victory.

As the new term begins, we urge one priority that has waited long enough: mental health.

Zambia has the law. It needs the budget.

In 2019 Zambia passed the Mental Health Act No. 6 of 2019, replacing the 1949 Mental Disorders Act and creating the National Mental Health Council. A genuine landmark — but a law is only as strong as its funding.

Research indicates mental healthcare receives around 0.38% of Zambia’s health budget. Roughly ten psychiatrists serve a nation of over 20 million. One national psychiatric hospital.

This is not a young people’s problem. It reaches every household.

Among Zambian adults, roughly 17% report mental distress — with rates rising over time and consistently higher among women. About 15% of the general population report unhealthy alcohol consumption. Close to 8% have experienced suicidal thoughts.

Among adolescents the picture is sharper still: nearly 30% report depressive symptoms, among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside the continent’s highest rate of adolescent binge drinking.

Parents. Workers. Farmers. Students. Elders. Across low-income settings, fewer than one in ten people who need mental health treatment receive it.

Our asks of the incoming government:

• Fund mental health properly, toward the Abuja Declaration’s 15% health allocation
• Fully implement the Mental Health Act 2019
• Decentralise care beyond Chainama into districts and schools
• Back Zambian-built digital mental health at national scale

That last one is ready now.

We have built Ometz — a mental health app made in Zambia, for Zambia. It carries five internationally validated screening tools for depression, anxiety, alcohol, other substances and burnout. And it is deliberately small — under 20MB, engineered around Zambian data prices, because an app people cannot afford to download helps no one.

It also solves a problem this post has already exposed. Every figure quoted above comes from surveys that are years old, because Zambia lacks current national mental health data. Ometz generates that data — anonymised, held on African servers, owned here.

A phone in the hand of a farmer in Chipata. A student in Kitwe. A mother in Lusaka. That is reach no clinic network can match, and the infrastructure already exists in people’s pockets.

The build is complete. What it needs now is partnership to finish clinical validation and take it national. We are ready to talk to anyone in government, health services or development finance who wants to move on this.

These commitments are already Zambia’s own — reinforced by the WHO Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2030 and SDG 3.4.

Restored minds build a restored nation.

#Zambia #MentalHealth #DigitalHealth #UPND #HealthPolicy #Zambia2026