Top 10 African Countries Where Youth Mental Health Is Thriving in 2025

In Summary

• Mental health gains are being driven internally. Rather than apply a Western mental health model, these countries are developing mental wellness models by drawing on their cultural diversity, community systems, and agency of youth.
• The countries that ranked highest made mental health local. From therapy-led programs in schools in Kenya to group-oriented, culturally specific rehabilitation programs in Tanzania and Nigeria. The countries that were ranked most successful prioritized relevance over replication.
• Digital tools, particularly peer-to-peer engagement are changing that. By providing anonymous and private platforms, leveraging group therapy and inclusive curriculum, youth mental health is being normalised one safe conversation at a time.

Deep Dive!!

Youth mental health is becoming a policy issue across Africa for good reasons. Seeing the preponderance of anxiety, depression, and trauma experienced by young people across the continent, there is no need for silence and shame. More than ever, countries are institutionalizing mental health literacy, offering therapeutic youth-focused counseling in schools, and integrating mental wellness into communication technology, sport, arts, and social and religious outreach.

What distinguishes Africa's progress is the integration of formal systems with cultural systems. Peer groups, mobile apps for counseling, and communities that have revived communal cultural practices to promote emotional and spiritual well-being are contributing to new approaches to access mental health across the continent.

This global index for 2025 ranks African countries where youth have the most positive mental health not just through decreased distress, but increased access to tools, facilitated conversations, and collectively increased social support.

10. Morocco

Morocco is investing in youth well-being in 2025 by integrating mental health services into the public education system. The introduction of new school psychologist positions in combination with awareness campaigns in cities like Casablanca has resulted in better early diagnosis, while the community centers in rural areas run workshops for youth support.

9. Algeria

Algeria has improved access to youth-friendly mental health services in northern provinces across the country. Increased government funding for school counselors, as well as mobile mental health units in remote locations, has resulted in youth becoming better at expressing their emotions. This has also improved emotional literacy for many of the youth in northern Algeria's schools and universities.

8. Mozambique

Mozambique is addressing youth trauma through site-specific interventions for communities emerging from conflict and displacement. Non-governmental organizations are implementing school-based group therapy, and teachers are being trained to notice mental distress, especially in provinces suffering from insurgency.

7. Kenya

Kenya is scaling school therapy programs with its Mental Health Policy 2022–2030. A desk to access therapy, mobile app support and partnerships with youth-led NGOs like Huru International have expanded emotional resilience. Additionally, Nairobi piloted peer wellness clubs in over 100 secondary schools.

6. DR Congo

Although there is instability in DRC, the urban centers like Kinshasa are implementing trauma counseling resources in youth emergency shelters and vocational education centers. Partnerships with groups such as the International Organization for Migration are creating programs available to support young people displaced by conflict and economic strife in their communities.

5. Côte d'Ivoire

In Côte d'Ivoire, youth mental health is being highlighted through arts-based interventions, youth-led radio shows, and school clubs. Additionally, the country's national mental health service responded to recommendations by creating a national mental health helpline for teenagers, and awareness campaigns in schools by UNICEF also help in de-stigmatizing issues such as anxiety and suicidal ideation.

4. Cameroon

Cameroon has established a psychosocial national counseling program to support youth emotional resilience. Schools established guided journaling, meditative sessions, and peer support groups. The Ministry of Youth pursued challenges in responding to and including mental setbacks for young people in their systematic rollout of a new digital healthy-living toolkit for youth in both English-speaking and French-speaking regions.

3. Angola

In Angola, policies focused on mental health for youth are based on an expectation of healing after conflict with an emphasis on family-level community support, cultural intervention, and storytelling therapy, shared in group healing sessions. Through collaboration with UNICEF and local churches, counseling services have been established and made available for youth in rural areas with no previous access or connections to mental health support.

2. Nigeria

In 2025, Nigeria is ranked second in the world for youth mental health on account of the work of grassroots initiatives being initiated and scaled nationwide on the back of youth mental wellness apps. By promoting therapy in Lagos schools and social media engagement across campaign sessions and organized online communities, Nigeria is establishing a model that valuably combines the foundation of the community with interventions based on ongoing innovation.

1. Tanzania

Tanzania is leading Africa and the world in combining cultural and clinical mental health practices. By 2026, thousands of schools will be offering social wellness clubs and mental health literacy classes. Rural community members run ancestral systems of support, and the national curriculum programming includes emotional education.