Dr Ledia Lazeri is the Regional Adviser for Mental Health at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. A native of Albania, she trained and worked as a psychiatrist in her home country, having contributed to education of medical students and later to the national reform of mental health policy and services.
Having joined WHO in 2000, Dr Lazeri expanded her scope of work larger in the Balkans region through the Mental Health Project of the Stability Pact in South-Eastern Europe and later in Türkiye where she led a large EU-funded WHO project on Improving Services for People with Disabilities. She held few assignments as WHO Representative to various European countries, where she led the WHO technical cooperation with the country. Dr Lazeri was the WHO Representative to Hungary during 2017-2021 and collaborated with a good number of Hungarian institutions under the umbrella of the Ministry of Human Capacities and beyond.
In her function as Regional Adviser for Mental Health since 2021, Dr Lazeri leads a team that brings together expertise in various areas: policy and services, rights and advocacy, communication and promotion in mental health, tasked, among others, with implementing the WHO European Framework for Action in Mental Health 2021-2025, supporting the pan-European Mental Health Coalition and contributing to the implementation of the EU Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health.