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| Photo by A Chosen Soul on Unsplash |
By Florence Shedrack
On 15 July 2026, I had the opportunity to represent Shades of Us at the webinar titled Decolonizing Global Health: Practitioner Perceptions and Pathways for Practice, facilitated by Dr. Anthony Francis Mveyange, a development economist and Director of Programs for Synergy at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). The session challenged long-held assumptions about power, partnership, and knowledge production in global health. More importantly, it challenged me to rethink what equitable collaboration should truly look like.
One statistic lingered in my mind throughout the session: 89% of global health professionals agreed that partners from high-income countries have greater influence over strategic decisions, while 64% believed that external solutions are still privileged over local expertise.
Those numbers exposed a system.
They challenged me to think about a question I had never seriously considered before: Who really gets to shape global health?
Before attending this webinar, I associated decolonization with Africa's political history. I thought of it as a process that ended decades ago when African nations gained independence. I never imagined it could describe the realities of research funding, authorship, leadership, and knowledge production in today's global health landscape.
Yet, as the discussion unfolded, I realised that colonialism does not always survive through governments or borders. Sometimes it survives through systems—through who decides what research gets funded, whose knowledge is considered authoritative, whose institutions receive resources, and who receives recognition after the work is done.
Interestingly, the study revealed that many practitioners themselves were only moderately familiar with the concept of decolonization. That finding surprised me until I heard the different ways respondents defined it. Some described it as dismantling colonial structures and unequal power dynamics. Others saw it as challenging knowledge systems that continue to privilege Western expertise over local evidence.
There was no universal definition.
Instead, there was a shared recognition that something within global health needs to change.
One observation from Dr. Mveyange stayed with me long after the webinar ended. He mentioned that some development partners are uncomfortable with the word decolonization. Rather than using the term directly, they prefer phrases such as addressing power imbalances because they believe the original word sounds political or confrontational.
I found that revealing.
If a single word makes us uncomfortable, perhaps it is because it forces us to confront uncomfortable realities.
One of the concepts I encountered for the first time was the ‘foreign gaze.’
The phrase perfectly captures something I had often observed but never had the language to describe.
For decades, many of Africa's health priorities have been interpreted through external perspectives. Decisions about what should be researched, funded, and prioritised are often made far away from the communities those decisions will affect. African researchers are frequently invited into projects after priorities have already been established.
They are asked to implement.
Rarely are they asked to define.
That distinction changed the way I think about partnership.
Participation without influence is not the same as partnership. It is participation without power.
Another point that deeply resonated with me was the discussion around the perception that “whatever comes from the West is the best.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, several African innovations and locally developed solutions struggled to receive the same confidence and recognition as interventions developed elsewhere, even when those external solutions presented their own challenges.
That example forced me to confront an uncomfortable question. Have we unconsciously accepted the idea that expertise has a geographical address? Because if we automatically trust solutions based on where they originate rather than the evidence supporting them, then colonial thinking has not disappeared—it has simply evolved.
As the conversation progressed, it became clear that power in global health extends far beyond funding.
It shapes agendas.
It determines who asks the questions.
It influences who publishes the findings.
It affects who becomes recognised as an expert.
The discussion on helicopter research was particularly sobering.
I imagined an African researcher spending months working in remote communities, collecting data, building trust with participants, navigating logistical challenges, and ensuring the success of a project—only to discover that when the study is finally published, their contribution is reduced to a minor authorship position while researchers elsewhere receive the greatest recognition.
That is not simply an issue of publication ethics.
It is an issue of justice.
Dr. Mveyange described this imbalance through what became one of the most memorable frameworks of the webinar—the four Rs: Responsibilities, Resources, Rewards, and Recognition.
Too often, African researchers carry enormous responsibilities but receive fewer resources, fewer rewards, and less recognition. The imbalance becomes even more troubling when one considers that these same researchers possess the contextual knowledge, cultural understanding, and community relationships that make the research possible in the first place.
Another aspect of the discussion broadened my understanding even further.
Decolonization is not only about correcting inequalities between the Global Minority and the Global Majority. Power imbalances also exist within Africa itself. Large institutions can unintentionally dominate smaller organisations. Well-established researchers can overshadow early-career scholars. Even within the continent, questions of representation, influence, and equity remain important.
That insight reminded me that decolonization is not about changing who occupies positions of power. It is about changing how power is shared.
What I appreciated most about APHRC's approach was its willingness to look inward before pointing outward.
The very conversation emerged from the Centre's own Organizational Effectiveness Assessment, where it recognised that it could make a greater contribution to advancing decolonization in global health.
That level of institutional self-reflection is commendable.
It demonstrated that meaningful change begins by examining our own systems before asking others to change theirs.
Beyond the conversation itself, I was encouraged to learn about APHRC's practical efforts to strengthen African leadership in research.
The Centre works closely with governments to develop policies and legislation and recently supported the launch of Kenya's Science, Research and Innovation Blueprint. It has also established the African Research Network, an initiative designed to increase the visibility and discoverability of African researchers while promoting collaboration across the continent.
For me, these initiatives represent what decolonization should look like in practice.
Not simply criticising existing structures.
But building better ones.
Perhaps the most inspiring idea I encountered during the webinar was that Africa should not only be a consumer of knowledge but also a producer of knowledge that shapes global practice. For too long, global health has operated as though expertise naturally flows from North to South.
But what if the flow went both ways? What if lessons from African communities informed health policies in Europe? What if innovations developed in Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, or Ghana became global models rather than local success stories? That possibility excites me because it transforms Africa from a passive recipient of solutions into an active contributor to global knowledge.
The conversation also introduced another emerging challenge that I had never connected to decolonization before: population data and artificial intelligence.
As AI systems increasingly rely on massive datasets, African populations risk becoming valuable sources of data without necessarily benefiting from the innovations those data make possible. Decolonizing global health, therefore, is no longer only about research funding or authorship. It is also about data ownership. Digital equity. And ensuring that technological progress does not reproduce old inequalities in new forms.
What encouraged me most, however, was that the session did not end with criticism. It ended with hope. The recommendations were practical rather than idealistic.
Institutionalise decolonization within organisations.
Strengthen African research excellence.
Invest in mentorship and leadership development.
Provide direct funding to African institutions.
Build partnerships based on transparency, reciprocity, and shared decision-making rather than symbolic inclusion.
These are not impossible ambitions. They are achievable commitments.
As I reflected after the webinar, I realised I now approach global health conversations differently. When I hear about an international research collaboration, I no longer ask only what problem the project hopes to solve.
I also ask:
Who identified the problem?
Who designed the study?
Who controls the funding?
Who owns the data?
Who receives recognition?
And perhaps most importantly—
Whose voices are missing from the conversation?
For me, that is the heart of decolonizing global health. It is not about rejecting collaboration or excluding partners from the Global Minority. It is about ensuring that collaboration is built on mutual respect, shared leadership, reciprocal learning, and fairness.
Global health cannot claim to be global if knowledge flows in only one direction. It cannot claim to be equitable if African researchers provide the data but not the direction. And it cannot claim to be inclusive if recognition continues to depend more on geography than contribution.
I joined the webinar expecting to learn a new concept.
Instead, I left with a new lens through which to view global health.
A lens that reminds me that the future of global health will not be defined simply by scientific breakthroughs or technological innovation, but by whether we are willing to reshape the systems that determine who gets to ask the questions, who gets to lead the research, and ultimately, who gets to shape global health.
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