AGHP Principles
The AGHP Principles represent an evolution of the Brocher Declaration, a set of recommendations AGHP created in 2020 to guide short-term global health engagements.
These new AGHP Principles represent a broader scope of recommendations and, we hope, a more enduring framework in the continued fight for global health equity.
AGHP Principles
We propose the following principles as foundational for all global health partnerships:
1 . Approach All Partnerships with Humility
Humility should be the cornerstone of engagement in global health work. This should lead to individuals and organizations establishing clear communications channels, cultivating a culture of openness, prioritizing emotional intelligence and empathy and embracing power-sharing.
2 . Ensure shared ownership with bidirectional input and learning
This would include embracing contextual understanding and flexibility, fostering collaboration, while cultivating mutual understanding, trustworthiness and shared decision-making.
3 . Center community-determined needs and activities
The agenda of needs and activities should not be projected by distal policy or passion, and the emphasis needs to be on understanding the needs for health and health care in local communities. The strategy to address these needs should be determined by local actors. Partnerships developed in global health should emphasize the needs and activities as articulated by these local actors and policy.
4 . Shift from capacity-building to capacity-strengthening
The key factor under this principle is to prioritize local knowledge exchange and ownership of processes and projects. Invoking epistemic justice, this is to move from a deficit-focused mind set to nurturing varied knowledge systems. While allowing alternative ways of knowing to flourish, this should also ensure that knowledge generation should not be the purview of a select few.
5 . Maintain transparency and compliance with legal and ethical standards
Transparency about financial incentives and constraints, addressing and ensuring that activities do not lead to aid-dependency should be a key ingredient in health partnered activities in global health. Transparency should also ensure that financial incentives do not exacerbate power differentials. Compliance with applicable laws, ethical standards, and code of conduct should be incorporated into all partnered work.
6 . Uphold accountability for actions and outcomes
While most of the global health partnership is based on “doing good,” intent alone does not determine the impact of such work. In the complex interconnected systems that constitute health and healthcare, the impact could be destabilizing and take attention away from areas that are of high local importance. The ability to reflect on or measure the unintended consequences of global health activities should be embedded in the partnered work. This would include practicing self-reflection and vulnerability, cultivating a learning and growth mindset, and embracing decolonial perspectives and practices.