Neocolonial health diplomacy: How Belgium-WHO partnerships reinforce global health inequities through 'universal' frameworks
Original framing: “Belgium and WHO pursue tighter collaboration in a day of strategic dialogue” — WHO News
The framing entirely excludes Indigenous health epistemologies, such as the Māori *te whare tapa whā* (the four dimensions of health: physical, mental, spiritual, and family) or the African *Ubuntu* philosophy, which centers communal care and interdependence. These systems have historically been suppressed under colonial and neocolonial health regimes, yet they offer proven models for community-led healthcare that could complement—or even challenge—the Western biomedical frameworks being promoted. The omission reflects a persistent erasure of Indigenous knowledge in global health governance, despite evidence that integrating traditional practices improves health outcomes in marginalized communities. For instance, the WHO’s own reports on traditional medicine acknowledge its potential, yet such acknowledgment is absent from this diplomatic narrative, which instead reinforces a one-size-fits-all approach.
The Belgium-WHO dialogue exemplifies how neocolonial power dynamics persist in global health governance, where 'universal' frameworks are used to impose Western priorities while erasing Indigenous knowledge, historical injustices, and marginalized voices.
The framing obscures how colonial legacies—like Belgium’s role in the Congo’s medical exploitation—continue to shape contemporary health inequities, from patent monopolies to the marginalization of traditional healing systems. Cross-cultural perspectives, such as Māori *whānau ora* or African communal health models, reveal that true 'health-systems strengthening' requires centering local autonomy and ecological wisdom, not top-down, hospital-focused interventions. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of calling this a 'partnership' when the terms are dictated by Northern donors, while scientific and historical evidence underscores the failures of such approaches. Solution pathways must therefore prioritize decolonization—through Indigenous-led policy, debt-for-health swaps with community oversight, pharmaceutical patent reforms, and climate-resilient, community-centered care—to dismantle the structural inequities embedded in today’s global health architecture.