Rethinking development interventions through the lens of decoloniality in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of global health

ABSTRACT

There has been much talk about decolonizing global health lately. The movement, which has arisen in various communities around the world, suggests an interesting critique of the Western dominant model of representations. Building upon the ‘decolonial thinking’ movement from the perspective of Francophone African philosophers, we comment on its potential for inspiring the field of global healthinterventions. Using existing literature and personal reflections, we reflect on two widely known illustrations of global health interventions implemented in sub-Saharan Africa – distribution of contraceptives and dissemination of Ebola virus prevention and treatment devices – featuring different temporal backdrops. We show how these solutions have most often targeted the superficial dimensions of global health problems, sidestepping the structures and mental models that shape the actions and reactions of African populations. Lastly, we question the ways through which the decolonial approach might indeed offer a credible positioning for rethinking global health interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Global health
• development interventions
• decoloniality
• sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the thorough work done by Emily-Jayn Rubec for translating the present manuscript from French to English. We also would like to thank Heather Hickey for proofreading the final version of the manuscript. Lastly, we thank the participants of two workshops organized at Université de Montreal in 2019, whose reflections informed some examples and arguments contained in the present manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article uses a ‘decolonial’ approach rather than a ‘postcolonial’ approach; in French literature, ‘postcolonial’ studies may also carry Marxist ideology in the context of social class struggles of third-generation immigrants in France (e.g., Bancel, 2012).

2 Saga Santé Facebook page: https://fr-fr.facebook.com/sagasante/. As of August 2020, it has over 27,500 followers spread over several Francophone African countries.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful to The Quebec Population Health Research Network (QPHRN) for its contribution to the financing of this publication.