Over 700 000 people lose their life to suicide every year. Reducing the global suicide mortality rate by one third by 2030 is both a target and indicator in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and in WHO’s Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2030.

The development of National Suicide Prevention Strategies have been identified as a proven systematic, evidence based response to preventing suicide that combines both community based approaches and government policy. To date, an estimated 40 countries are known to have developed a national suicide prevention strategy, and in many other countries there are regional programmes or less comprehensive suicide prevention projects and activities.