The Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives set up a Mental Health, Strategic Planning and Coordination Unit (MHSP&C Unit) on 14th April, 2025, with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and their partner International Medical Corps in Pakistan. Since then, the MHSP&C Unit has provided technical support to health departments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Baltistan to implement MHPSS Services.

The national roundtable on mental health legislation focussed on reviewing the status of mental health legislations and identify practical pathways for implementation. The discussion highlighted key gaps between legislative intent and on-ground realities, including weak enforcement, limitations in rights-based appraoch, limited institutional mechanisms, resource constraints, and insufficient capacity for implementation and monitoring.

A national round table on Mental Health Legislative reforms was held on 25th March 2026 in Islamabad. The objective was to engage key federal and provincial stakeholders and initiate a process of reviewing the existing mental health legislations, reflect on the challenges for implementation, and develop a consensus on next actionable steps for making these laws meaningful in practice.