Decoloniality of Power: Unpacking Local Agency in Ghana’s COVID-19 Response

Abstract This paper examines Ghana’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of decoloniality to highlight how the crisis underscored the enduring impact of coloniality in global health governance. Ghana’s response challenged the entrenched narratives of African incapacity and dependence by leveraging local knowledge systems, traditional medicine, and indigenous scientific contributions to combat the pandemic. By opposing neocolonial attitudes, Ghana demonstrated the resilience and agency of Global South epistemologies. The study reveals how colonial power dynamics continue to dominate global health discourse, which reduces Africa to a passive recipient of external aid while marginalizing its knowledge systems. Ghana’s commitment to self-reliance serves as a counter-narrative to the colonial construct of African dependency. The pandemic exposed the inequities of the global knowledge economy and the systemic erasure of African agency in global health strategies. This paper argues that Ghana’s decolonial governance approach provides critical insights for reimagining global health governance and fostering cognitive justice. The paper challenges the Westcentric dominance in knowledge production and reaffirms the credibility of scientific contributions from Ghana. Ultimately, the study calls for revalorizing African epistemologies and a shift toward inclusive frameworks that prioritize local agency in addressing global crises.