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| Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash |
Whenever conversations about global health come up, they usually centre around disease outbreaks, vaccines, medical research, or improving access to healthcare. For the longest time, that was exactly how I thought about it too. To me, global health was simply about finding better ways to keep people healthy. Sometimes, however, all we need is a little more education to broaden our perspective.
I recently had the opportunity to attend an event on Decolonizing Global Health: Practitioner Perceptions and Pathways for Practice, jointly hosted by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) and Charité Global Health. I expected to leave with a better understanding of healthcare systems. Instead, I walked away thinking about something I had never really questioned before.
Who decides what global health should look like?
Who determines which health problems deserve the most attention?
Who shapes the policies?
Whose knowledge influences the decisions that affect millions of people across Africa and beyond?
Those questions stayed with me long after the event had ended.
The session was led by Anthony Mveyange, Director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), alongside Branwen Hennig, Director of Charité Global Health. Rather than focusing only on improving health outcomes, the speakers explored how historical systems continue to influence global health research, funding, partnerships, and decision-making today.
One thing became clear almost immediately. Decolonizing global health is not about excluding Global Minority institutions or rejecting international collaboration. It is about creating partnerships where leadership is shared, local expertise is respected, and communities are recognised as active contributors rather than passive recipients of solutions.
As I listened, I realised the conversation was much bigger than healthcare itself.
It was about power.
It was about representation.
It was about who gets the opportunity to influence decisions that affect millions of lives.
These points stayed with me throughout the session.
Anthony Mveyange later introduced the work of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), describing it as a leading African research institution committed to improving health and population outcomes through evidence generation, policy engagement, and capacity strengthening.
What particularly caught my attention was a study conducted between 2022 and 2023, which explored how practitioners understand the idea of decolonizing global health and what practical changes are needed to build a more equitable system.
The study revealed something I hadn't expected. There wasn't one universal definition of decolonizing global health. For some practitioners, it meant dismantling colonial structures that continue to shape health systems today. For others, it meant redistributing decision-making power so African institutions and Global Majority partners participate as equal leaders rather than junior collaborators. Others viewed it as recognising that knowledge produced within Africa deserves the same respect and credibility as knowledge produced anywhere else in the world.
Listening to these different perspectives, I realised this conversation was not simply about changing language. It was about changing the way we think. And perhaps that is where real transformation begins.
Power
That thought stayed with me throughout the rest of the event.
The more I listened, the more another question kept coming to mind:
Who really holds the power?
Not power in the sense of titles or positions, but the power to decide which health challenges deserve global attention, which research receives funding, whose ideas influence policies, and ultimately, whose knowledge is considered valuable.
Before attending the event, I had never really thought about these questions. I simply assumed that when people from different countries came together to address global health challenges, everyone had an equal opportunity to contribute. However, as the speakers unpacked the findings of the study, I realised the reality is often far more complex.
One of the recurring issues discussed during the session was that many global health priorities are still shaped outside the communities they are meant to serve. By the time local researchers, healthcare professionals, and communities are invited into the conversation, many of the important decisions have already been made. Listening to this made me stop and reflect.
Can a partnership truly be described as equal if one side is invited only after the direction has already been decided?
That question stayed with me because the discussion was never about rejecting international partnerships or suggesting that one group has all the answers. Instead, it challenged us to rethink what genuine collaboration should look like. True partnership is not one side leading while the other follows. It is about creating space where different experiences, ideas, and expertise are respected from the very beginning.
As I reflected on everything I had heard, I realised that this conversation extended far beyond healthcare. It made me think about education, research, development, and even the work organisations do within communities every day. How many valuable ideas never receive the attention they deserve simply because they come from the ‘wrong’ place? How many communities already understand the challenges they face but are rarely given the opportunity to help shape the solutions? That, for me, became one of the biggest lessons from the event. Sustainable solutions cannot be built by speaking for communities alone.
They are built by listening to communities, learning from their experiences, and recognising that lived experience is also a form of expertise.
Reflecting on this also reminded me why the work we do at Shades of Us matters. Every story we share is built on the belief that people should be heard before they are judged, and that communities should be understood before solutions are designed for them. But more than that, we also believe that communities should be at the heart of designing their own solutions and telling their own stories. Whether we are discussing health, education, gender equality, or social development, meaningful change begins by listening. Sometimes, the people closest to a problem are also the people closest to its solution.
This is why conversations like these are so important. Sustainable Development Goal 3 calls for ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for people of all ages. Achieving that vision requires more than expanding healthcare services or investing in medical research. It also requires building systems where local expertise is respected, partnerships are genuinely equitable, and the people most affected by health challenges have a meaningful voice in shaping the decisions that affect their lives.
I left the event with a completely different understanding of what decolonizing global health means. It is not about dividing the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’. It is about creating a future where knowledge is recognised because of its value, not because of where it comes from. It is about replacing hierarchy with partnership, replacing assumptions with listening, and ensuring that no community is treated simply as a place where research happens, but as a place where knowledge, innovation, and leadership already exist.
Perhaps that is where meaningful change begins—not when one voice becomes louder than another, but when every voice finally has the opportunity to be heard.
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