Decolonising global health evaluations: A scoping review of methodological frameworks
4 affiliations
- 1Centre for Evaluation, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), London, United Kingdom
- 2Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
- 3Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), London, United Kingdom
- 4Centre for Evaluation, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), London, United Kingdom
Abstract
The field of global health evaluation is critiqued for its reliance on Eurocentric paradigms that perpetuate epistemic injustice. A rapidly evolving yet conceptually fragmented literature on decolonising evaluation has emerged in response. We conducted a scoping review to chart the nature and breadth of this literature and synthesise insights to guide future evaluation scholarship and practice. Academic database searches identified 1,024 records, of which 732 were screened at title and abstract following deduplication. Combined with 138 records from grey literature and citation searches, a total of 653 reports were assessed at full text, from which 59 records were included in the final synthesis. Our synthesis reveals that the literature points in two concurrent, dialectical and complementary theoretical projects: the first involving the deconstruction of colonial systems, and the second the (re)construction of decolonial and Indigenous-centred alternatives. We organised our findings into a typology that illustrates a spectrum of praxis in global public health evaluation, which moves from minimal adaptation of dominant methodological approaches to a more profound philosophical and political reorientation of practice. This paper calls for greater conceptual precision in the description of chosen approaches to prevent the co-optation of decolonial language and the need for empirical research to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
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BibTeX
@article{hafez2026decolonising,
title = {{Decolonising global health evaluations: A scoping review of methodological frameworks}},
author = {Sali Hafez and Agata Pacho and Seyi Soremekun and Meghna Ranganathan and Mitzy Gafos and Lucy Platt and Ruth Ponsford},
journal = {PLOS Global Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pgph.0007362},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0007362},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Decolonising global health evaluations: A scoping review of methodological frameworks
AU - Sali Hafez
AU - Agata Pacho
AU - Seyi Soremekun
AU - Meghna Ranganathan
AU - Mitzy Gafos
AU - Lucy Platt
AU - Ruth Ponsford
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/25
JO - PLOS Global Public Health
DO - 10.1371/journal.pgph.0007362
UR - https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0007362
AB - The field of global health evaluation is critiqued for its reliance on Eurocentric paradigms that perpetuate epistemic injustice. A rapidly evolving yet conceptually fragmented literature on decolonising evaluation has emerged in response. We conducted a scoping review to chart the nature and breadth of this literature and synthesise insights to guide future evaluation scholarship and practice. Academic database searches identified 1,024 records, of which 732 were screened at title and abstract following deduplication. Combined with 138 records from grey literature and citation searches, a total of 653 reports were assessed at full text, from which 59 records were included in the final synthesis. Our synthesis reveals that the literature points in two concurrent, dialectical and complementary theoretical projects: the first involving the deconstruction of colonial systems, and the second the (re)construction of decolonial and Indigenous-centred alternatives. We organised our findings into a typology that illustrates a spectrum of praxis in global public health evaluation, which moves from minimal adaptation of dominant methodological approaches to a more profound philosophical and political reorientation of practice. This paper calls for greater conceptual precision in the description of chosen approaches to prevent the co-optation of decolonial language and the need for empirical research to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
SN - 2767-3375
ER -