At the 3rd Nordic Conference on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Oslo, we came together around a shared ambition: to move from response to resilience and strengthen mental health and psychosocial wellbeing before, during and after emergencies.
The resulting Oslo Open Pledge sets out recommendations for Nordic actors across five priority areas:
- From response to resilience: commit to long-term, flexible and diversified funding, strengthen country systems, and shift resources and decision-making power closer to affected communities.
- Climate & Nature: integrate MHPSS into climate action, disaster risk reduction, anticipatory action and preparedness with affected communities shaping the response.
- Children & Education: strengthen community-based systems around children by investing in caregivers, teachers, frontline workers and meaningful child and youth participation
- Innovation: move beyond short-term pilots towards locally led, evidence-informed, safe and ethical approaches with clear pathways to scale and system integration.
- Youth leadership: shift power and resources to young people and locally led youth initiatives, recognising meaningful participation as an essential part of effective crisis response.
These priorities reflect a clear message emerging throughout the conference process: MHPSS cannot remain a short-term, stand-alone response. It needs sustained investment, local leadership and integration across health, education, protection, climate and disaster preparedness systems.
The Pledge is non-binding, but it is intended to be practical: a common framework that Nordic governments, donors, civil society, researchers, practitioners, UN actors and youth networks can use for action, advocacy, collaboration and accountability.
Now the work is to turn the pledge into practice.
