Session: Reimagining Global Health Partnerships: Equity-Centered Collaboration across the Global South and North (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

The 2026 SSWR conference theme Leading for Transformative Change: Aligning Social Work Science with Policy and Practice calls for visionary leadership that bridges research, implementation, and equity. Nowhere is this integration more urgent than in Global South/Global North partnerships in health. While these collaborations are essential to addressing leading global health issues, they are too often shaped by power imbalances that prioritize Global North agendas and marginalize the expertise of Global South communities. This symposium brings together three studies that critically examine and actively reconfigure the architecture of North/South collaborations. Together, they propose new models of partnership grounded in co-creation and integration of research with lived experience.

The first presentation introduces the Critical Ecology of Partnership (CEP) framework, developed through a comprehensive review of global health partnership research. By integrating ecological systems theory with critical theory, the framework interrogates how power operates across microsystem to macrosystem levels highlighting donor control, language hierarchies, and epistemic exclusion in Global North-led projects. Unlike traditional models that place Global North institutions at the center, the CEP centers communities in the Global South, repositioning them as primary knowledge producers and decision-makers. This framework serves as a tool for researchers and practitioners to realign partnerships toward mutual accountability, shared governance, and justice key tenets of transformative social work leadership.

The second paper discusses the development of a smartphone-based EMA (ecological momentary assessment) application to help women in Nairobi's informal settlements navigate the overlapping risks of climate change and IPV. While mHealth solutions are often exported from Global North contexts, this intervention flips the script by designing a tech-based harm reduction tool specifically for Global South realities. The paper explores tensions between North-led technical infrastructure and local implementation, including overcoming barriers in network access, application hosting platforms, and payment structures. The project models what equitable digital collaboration can look like where Global North support complements, rather than overrides, community-led design and Global South research priorities.

The final presentation examines the co-adaptation and testing of WINGS+PM+, an integrated IPV and mental health intervention delivered by community health promoters in Nairobi. Although the original models (WINGS and PM+) were developed through international collaborations, their integration and adaptation were driven by local stakeholders including community advisory boards and frontline health workers. The study details how iterative feedback loops, shared decision-making, and culturally grounded implementation strategies allowed a Global North/South collaboration to yield an intervention that is locally relevant and scalable. This model demonstrates that when Global North expertise supports rather than dictates intervention design, the result is deeper community ownership, better outcomes, and long-term sustainability.

Together, these papers offer a roadmap for transforming North/South collaborations in global health through a social work lens. They demonstrate that partnerships rooted in humility, critical reflection, and shared power can generate more ethical, effective, and impactful science. In a time of mounting global crises, this symposium argues that transformative change is only possible when the Global South is not just a site of intervention but a full partner in research, innovation, and policy leadership.