Anthony Mveyange, Director of Programs – Synergy at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).Photo Courtesy
At the 2025 Humanitarian Health Research Forum, Anthony Mveyange, Director of Programs – Synergy at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), delivered a powerful keynote focused on decolonizing global health partnerships for humanitarian contexts.
The forum, co-hosted by APHRC and Elrha from May 7 to May 9, 2025, brought together a wide array of researchers, humanitarian organizations, and health stakeholders. The summit’s theme, Bridging Global Health Research and Humanitarian Response in a Climate-Impacted World, was an apt backdrop for Mveyange’s candid address, which sought to critically examine the power dynamics at play in global health collaborations.
He posed a question that has long lingered but rarely been directly addressed:
“Is Africa a lab, a partner, or a burden of the West?”
This simple yet unsettling question framed Mveyange’s reflection on the structural inequalities embedded in global health partnerships. Drawing from an APHRC internal study and a deep well of experience, he laid out how current practices continue to marginalize African actors—not only in funding and authorship, but in voice and leadership.
A Mirror to the Sector
At the heart of Mveyange’s speech was a sobering reflection drawn from yet to be released APHRC’s study, which surveyed 113 individuals, including staff, collaborators, and funders. It revealed that more than two-thirds of respondents believed that non-African professionals often overrate their capabilities when working alongside African peers.
“Even non-African partners agreed with that statement,” Mveyange noted. “We asked them: ‘Do you think non-Africans overrate themselves compared to their African peers?’ And the answer was yes. That speaks volumes about the unspoken imbalance.”
This dynamic, he argued, reflects deeper perceptions of superiority that shape how research and interventions are designed and implemented. According to the study, interventions are frequently imposed with minimal involvement from local communities—an observation that supports findings from a 2022 Lancet Global Health report, which concluded that externally led health programs often fail due to insufficient community engagement.
He underscored the point by referencing a systematic review of 7,100 articles published on PubMed between 2014 and 2016:
“Thirteen point five percent of all papers did not include African co-authors. Helicopter research. Data is collected in Africa, and African scholars are used, but they appear nowhere. The invisible African collaborators.”
He added, “Sixty-eight point three percent of the articles involved collaborators from the US, Canada, Europe, and another African country. And the most depressing one: Africans had a lower likelihood of big-faced authors—only 23%—when collaborating with leaders from top U.S. institutions.”
But Mveyange did not stop at exposing external bias. He emphasized the need for African institutions to look inward as well.
“Even here in Africa, bigger institutions can sideline smaller, community-based partners,” he admitted. “That says a lot. When we think of decolonization, what exactly do we mean if we’re still centralizing power internally?”
His critique served as a reminder that dismantling harmful hierarchies must be a bilateral effort, internally and externally.
The Power of the Purse
Perhaps the most revealing insight from Mveyange’s address centered on funding. According to APHRC’s study, nearly 90% of respondents believed high-income country (HIC) institutions hold disproportionate power over decision-making in joint projects.
“They wield more decision-making power than is justifiably earned,” he said. “That means local expertise is often overlooked, and community voices are sidelined.”
To reinforce this point, Mveyange cited broader funding patterns that reflect persistent imbalances.
“About 70% of grants from the Fogarty International Center go to institutions in the Global North, according to 2023 data from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. “And in 2022, only 1.9% of humanitarian funding went directly to local NGOs, according to the Center for Global Development.”
Such disparities raise difficult questions about who sets the agenda in global health—and who gets to benefit. Mveyange connected this funding gap to visibility and leadership.
“The money doesn’t just influence who gets paid. It determines who gets to speak, who gets to lead, and ultimately, who gets to matter.”
He also pointed out the inconsistency in global responses to crises. While emergencies in Ukraine and Gaza have seen swift funding and media attention, African crises in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo remain chronically underfunded.
Four Principles for Equity
Mveyange’s address was not just a critique. It was also a roadmap. He outlined four guiding principles to foster more just and effective collaborations in global health:
- Local Solutions First
“You can’t take data about diseases on the continent and provide solutions that are not continent-specific,” he argued. “It doesn’t work. Solutions have to be grounded in the lived experiences of people they’re meant to serve.”
- Parity in Collaboration
Partnerships should go beyond tokenism to ensure equal leadership in research design, authorship, and implementation.
“Parity isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s logical. The more equal the partnership, the better the outcomes.”
- Equitable Funding
Funds must be channeled to empower African researchers, not merely used to implement pre-defined strategies from elsewhere.
- Mutual Accountability
“It’s not enough to be accountable to donors,” he said. “We need to be accountable to each other and especially to the communities we serve.”
These ideas echo a growing body of literature advocating for reform. The 2021 BMJ Global Health manifesto on decolonising global health, for instance, calls for equitable authorship, shared leadership, and inclusive research design. Likewise, the Wellcome Trust has outlined an equity strategy aimed at increasing diversity within its organization and promoting fairer research practices, with a stated goal of ensuring that 30% of its staff come from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities by 2026.
A Story of Refusal and Dignity
To emphasize the power of local control, Mveyange recounted a significant moment from the 2019–2020 Ebola outbreak in the DRC. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, Director General of the DRC’s National Biomedical Research Institute, declined to allow virus samples to be sent abroad. Instead, he ensured the research remained in-country.
“The world has changed,” Mveyange reflected. “And it’s a matter of fairness. If we’re not trusted to lead on our problems, what does that say about the global health community?”
A Shared Responsibility
The 2025 Humanitarian Health Research Forum provided a critical space for these conversations, as researchers, funders, and humanitarian actors examined the climate-health nexus and equity in research. Mveyange’s keynote was not an indictment but a reflection—one rooted in the urgency of reform.
“I’m not saying this to make you feel sad,” he concluded. “But to help you wake up. And that goes both ways. It’s not unilateral; it’s bilateral. Everyone needs to reflect.”
His message, grounded in both data and conviction, calls for a shift not just in policy but in mindset. As the sector continues to reckon with its colonial legacy, the question is no longer whether African researchers can lead. It is whether the system is ready to let them.
If global health is to rise to the challenges of today—climate change, pandemics, displacement—it must do more than include Africa. It must be believed in Africa. It must trust Africa.
Because in the end, the question Mveyange posed—“Is Africa a lab, a partner, or a burden?”—demands an answer that is not rhetorical, but structural.
Broader Reflections
Beyond the keynote, the forum covered a range of pressing topics. These included strengthening climate-resilient health systems, ethical research in emergency contexts, and funding strategies that prioritize long-term local capacity. Discussions also delved into how community-based organizations can lead data collection and analysis, and how to safeguard the dignity of affected populations throughout humanitarian research processes.
