Global health collaborations, typically designed to address specific public health needs in low-resource settings, can be significantly affected by hierarchical power imbalances between participants. This can lead to participants from low-resource settings having a decreased opportunity to fully engage in decision-making and can allow for outcomes more likely to favor higher-resource groups. Investigators from Yale School of Medicine and the University of Liberia’s College of Health Services sought to better characterize the experiences of collaborators involved in global health work in the setting of post-war, post-Ebola Liberia.
Interviews with participants first sought to determine the priorities of the global health actors, finding that the power to set priorities for the work being conducted was primarily held by those with financial power, with the implementation of plans geared towards the expectations of these donors. The researchers also explored the various factors contributing to this imbalance, including the donor’s prior history of engagement, as well as their levels of both transparency and accountability. The authors highlight the need to readdress the accountability within global health partnerships to improve equity for low-resource participants in collaborations.
To learn more, read the study, “Exploring equity in global health collaborations: a qualitative study of donor and recipient power dynamics in Liberia.”
Cakouros, B. E., Gum, J., Levine, D. L., Lewis, J., Wright, A. H., Dahn, B., & Talbert-Slagle, K. (2024). Exploring equity in global health collaborations: a qualitative study of donor and recipient power dynamics in Liberia. BMJ Global Health, 9(3), e014399–e014399. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-014399