From Zimbabwe to the World: the next generation of African mental health research leaders

The burden of mental illness is felt profoundly in communities with limited access to mental health support. For example, as of April 2024, Zimbabwe has only 18 psychiatrists for a population of 17 million, while Ethiopia has 110 psychiatrists for a population of 112 million. Zimbabwe also records consistently high rates of suicide (23.6 per 100,000), exceeding Sub-Saharan averages, while mental health receives just 0.42% of the total healthcare budget.

At the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), we have been forging international partnerships with researchers at the University of Zimbabwe to help alleviate the impact of mental illness. This includes work to integrate mental health and HIV care, which is also highly burdensome in southern African countries like Zimbabwe.

On 6 March 2025, we were honoured to be joined by my long-time colleague and friend, Professor Dixon Chibanda, a world-leading psychiatrist and Professor of Psychiatry & Global Mental Health at the University of Zimbabwe. Professor Chibanda presented a talk on the Friendship Bench – a community-based approach that he founded and has since been testing with King’s researchers. He then introduced the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI), an African-led consortium focused on building mental health research capacity in nine countries across the continent.

A focus on community-based mental health interventions

The Friendship Bench is an evidence-based mental health intervention developed by Professor Chibanda in Zimbabwe. It is rooted in over a decade of research, including studies led by myself and colleagues at the IoPPN, and provides an accessible, community-driven solution to addressing common mental health disorders.

The approach uses trained ‘grandmothers’ – community volunteers without any prior medical or mental health experience – to deliver a cognitive behavioural therapy-based intervention for people experiencing mild to moderate mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression.

Known locally as kufungisisa, which translates to "thinking too much", these conditions are addressed through structured 45-minute counselling sessions on wooden benches in discreet areas of local clinics.

Since 2006, Professor Chibanda and his team have trained over 600 grandmothers to deliver this evidence-based therapy across more than 70 communities in Zimbabwe. In 2023 alone, over 220,000 people received support from more than 2,000 trained community health workers. The initiative has now expanded beyond Zimbabwe, reaching six additional countries, including the US, Vietnam, Malawi, Kenya, Zanzibar and Jordan. It has also grown into HIV care through the TENDAI intervention, which combines the Friendship Bench approach with targeted support for adherence to HIV medication. Excitingly, we are now working to bring the Friendship Bench to the UK, demonstrating its broad applicability and success on a global scale.

Training the next generation of African mental health leaders

Through our latest project, the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI), we are focused on building mental health research capacity across the continent. AMARI is an African-led consortium involving six African and two UK universities. The initiative aims to empower African scientists to lead in global mental health research, training and implementation.

Now in its second phase (AMARI-II), the programme is training 85 research fellows at master’s, PhD and postdoctoral levels across Africa. These fellows receive support from third supervisors at the IoPPN. The ultimate goal of AMARI is to support a new generation of African mental health researchers who will drive innovative and locally relevant solutions for mental health challenges and be able to sustain research careers in Africa.

A collaborative approach to advancing global mental health

For the panel discussion we were joined by global mental health experts and AMARI third PhD supervisors, Dr Ricardo Twumasi, Dr Tatiana Taylor Salisbury, Dr Jermaine Dambi, Professor Chibanda and myself, chaired by IoPPN Vice Dean of Impact, Professor Sally Marlow. Some of our AMARI fellows also tuned in remotely from across Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The discussion brought out the importance of these international partnerships in building sustainable and relevant mental health solutions, reducing inequity in access to care, and building research capacity. The audience also provided fascinating insights on how to authentically decolonise mental health by paying attention to local idioms of distress, and using research methods which resonate with traditional African approaches to verifying truth.

By fostering two-way collaboration between African and UK institutions, and leveraging the expertise of initiatives like the Friendship Bench and AMARI, we hope to create lasting impact in global mental health.

The event was jointly organised by the IoPPN and King’s Global Health Institute, in collaboration with the African Leadership Centre and the School of Global Affairs in the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy as part of King’s Africa Week.