Opportunities and Challenges in North-South and South-South Global Health Collaborations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The AFREhealth-CUGH Experience (as Reported at the CUGH 2021 Satellite Meeting)

Sustainable and equitable partnerships and collaborations between the Global North and Global South (as well as within the Global South) have been aspirations (if seldom achieved) of the “global health” endeavor over the past couple of decades. The COVID-19 pandemic led to global lockdowns that disrupted international travel and severely challenged these partnerships, providing a critical space for self-reflection on global health as a discipline. One major global north-south partnership is that between the African Forum for Research and Education in Health (AFREhealth) and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH). This article reports on a recent Satellite meeting of the AFREhealth-CUGH Working Group (ACWG) at the CUGH 2021 virtual conference in March 2021 that provided insights on North-South and South-South global health partnerships, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors describe challenges and opportunities for research and education in these partnerships (as discussed at this ACWG Satellite meeting), and implications for the field of global health going forward as we emerge from the pandemic.