Catalytic Pooled Fund for Mental Health Investments
Summary
In 2025, African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA) committed to launch a $100 million Mental Health Fund as part of the Coalition for Mental Health Investment (CMHI) . The Fund will leverage $20 million in catalytic capital to unlock $80 million in private investment over 10 years, making it safer for investors to support mental health solutions. By backing early-stage ideas, scaling proven pilots, and expanding larger programs, the Fund will help overcome barriers such as high upfront costs, limited community-based care, and fragmented donor funding. Beyond financing, AVPA will provide technical assistance, investment readiness support, and rigorous impact monitoring to ensure sustainability. Drawing on CMHI’s global network and AVPA’s expertise in innovative finance, the Fund aims to transform mental health ecosystems across Africa by expanding access to care, reducing economic and health burdens, and advancing policy and funding practices that endure.
Approach
As part of the Coalition for Mental Health Investment (CMHI) , the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA) is launching a Mental Health Fund to make it safer for investors to support mental health solutions. Today, many private investors avoid mental health because they see it as too risky. This Fund will change that by using US$20 million in “catalytic capital”—funds that take on the first share of risk—to unlock up to US$80 million more from private investors. Together, this will create a US$100 million portfolio over the next 10 years.
The Fund will support a wide range of initiatives: from new ideas that need testing, to proven pilots that are ready to grow, to larger programs that require risk-sharing to expand. All projects will be carefully vetted for their potential impact and alignment with CMHI’s principles. By pooling resources in this way, the Fund will help overcome common barriers such as high upfront costs, limited community-based care, and fragmented donor funding.
Beyond financing, AVPA will provide support to implementing partners—helping organizations become investment-ready, offering technical assistance, and ensuring impact is tracked and measured. This will allow successful programs to grow sustainably and demonstrate that mental health is not only socially urgent, but also financially viable.
This commitment from the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance is part of the Coalition for Mental Health Investment’s (CMHI) commitment portfolio. CMHI works to connect, inspire, de-risk, and integrate mental health investment globally. Through this commitment, AVPA will champion CMHI’s de-risk pillar by unlocking new flows of private capital into mental health, paving the way for large-scale, sustainable solutions across Africa and beyond.
Action Plan
AVPA will mobilize and deploy up to US$100 million in capital, by de-risking investors through US$20 million in catalytic capital, to unlock US$80 million in private funding, leveraging a 1:4 ratio. The action plan is as follows:
Phase 1: November to December 2025
Secure first anchor investments, finalize fund structure, launch the fund and amplify publically.
Phase 2: January to December 2026
Plan implementation and engagement models, mobilize private capital, develop co-investment models to crowd in private capital, facilitate policy dialogue and ecosystem advocacy for mental health investment.
Phase 3: January 2027 to December 2030
Design outcome-based contracting and pay-for-success models, structure blended financing, inject catalytic capital, provide technical assistance and measurement support, monitor and evaluate activities, facilitate policy dialogue and ecosystem advocacy for mental health investment.
Phase 4: January 2031 to December 2035
Mobilize private capital, provide technical assistance and measurement support, monitor and evaluate activities, verify outcomes and metrics, onboard outcome payers, facilitate policy dialogue and ecosystem advocacy for mental health investment, repurpose and recycle capital based on mission alignment.
Outcomes: US$100 million deployed through innovative finance instruments. 200000+ people reached with mental health service. 5+ countries adopting innovative financing policy. 20+ mental health programmes funded and operational.
Background
Mental health conditions affect one in four people worldwide, yet they receive less than 2% of domestic government healthcare funding, leaving an estimated $200–$350 billion annual financing gap (MHI, 2025) . The economic toll is enormous: depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy $1 trillion each year in lost productivity (WHO, 2024) . Evidence shows that for every $1 invested in scaling mental health programs, there is a $5–$6 return, alongside a 35% increase in productivity (MHI, 2025; Gallup, 2024) .
In Africa, 116 million people are living with mental health conditions (WHO, 2023) . Yet more than 85% lack access to care due to stigma, underfunding, and severe workforce shortages—there are just 1.4 mental health workers per 100,000 people (WHO, 2021) . Poverty, high disease burdens, the health impacts of climate change, and limited infrastructure further intensify the crisis. The result is $9 billion in lost productivity annually across the continent (World Bank, 2024) .
Despite rising awareness, expanding digital health tools, and WHO-led efforts to integrate mental health into primary care, financing remains profoundly inadequate. In Africa, less than 1% of health budgets go to mental health, with per capita spending as low as $0.10–$0.50 per year (World Bank, 2023) .
A Catalytic Pooled Fund offers a path forward. By blending diverse sources of capital, such a Fund can help overcome key barriers: stigma, fragmented funding, limited recognition of mental health’s economic and social returns, and insufficient knowledge on scaling effective interventions. Catalytic capital can seed and expand innovative financing instruments—such as blended finance models—to unlock private investment, strengthen health systems, and deliver sustainable impact for millions of people in Africa and beyond.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
AVPA is seeking partnership with funders to invest in the Catalytic Pooled Fund. AVPA invites partnership from impact investors, private investors, and philanthropic and concessional capital providers such as Foundations, Family Offices, Aid Agencies, and Governments.
AVPA will work with vetted implementing partners to implement the programmes to end beneficiaries, and independent evaluators to verify impact outcomes.,As a network of social investors and part of the global investment movement, AVPA offers a platform, Deal Share Platform, that connects investors and founders to high impact investment opportunities. AVPA also has access to investors that mobilize and deploy financial, human and intellectual capital for maximum social impact. AVPA will leverage these networks to foster learning and collaboration to increase the flow of capital into the Fund. This will accelerate the development of impactful solutions to mental health through the Fund.
Through AVPA’s ASIEx programme, AVPA brings expertise in blended finance structuring, outcome-based financing, Fund governance and operational structures, technical assistance including access to training and capacity building programs in Catalytic Capital and innovative finance, and key design principles of the Fund such as optimization, recyclability, independence, scalability & sustainability and measurability.