Gureje is internationally recognized as a leading global mental health researcher with important contributions to psychiatric nosology, mental-physical comorbidity, cross-cultural epidemiology of mental disorders, ageing in sub-Saharan Africa, and the development of integrated service for people with mental health conditions. His contributions to mental health service and policy development in Nigeria include leading the development of the current National Policy on Mental Health Service as Chair of the Mental Health Action Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health. As the Founder and Director of the Mental Health Leadership and Advocacy Programme (mhLAP) at the University of Ibadan, he has led in leadership capacity building and mental health service and policy developments in the five anglophone countries of Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. As President of Association of African Psychiatrists and Allied Professions (AAPAP), he convened, in 2009, and in collaboration with the WHO and the World Psychiatric Association, a policy roundtable on scaling up mental health in sub-Saharan Africa, attended by the health ministers or their representatives of 8 sub-Sahara African countries.