Tackling Inequalities in Global Surgery: Our Commitment

Lifebox recognizes our role as an organization working within a global health system that operates in – and in many ways reinforces – inequalities. Neocolonialism, and the structural inequities this causes, impacts all aspects of the system – from research, education and training opportunities, to access to funding and priority-setting.

Lifebox is strongly committed to addressing inequities both within our organization and in the global surgery community. We have set ambitious goals for investing in staff, leadership, and innovation in the regions where we work to reduce our footprint in high-income countries. 

• Eighty percent of the Lifebox team, including the majority of leadership positions, being based in the Global South

• The Lifebox Global Governance Council being representative of where we work, with increased membership from low-income countries

• Seventy-five percent of our research having an LMIC based lead or senior author

• Ensuring inclusivity and promoting equity in all Lifebox opportunities for our global partner network

• To be actively anti-neocolonial in all Lifebox communications, including putting guidelines in place 

• Continuing to actively engage in and promote the Transformational Dialogues Coalition – a broad coalition of individuals and organizations working to identify key issues in the global surgery sphere and actions to tackle these

• Conducting implicit bias training for all Lifebox team and Council members

Transformational Dialogues 

Lifebox is a founding member of Transformational Dialogues – a broad coalition of individuals and organizations from the global surgery community working to identify and address issues of neocolonialism and inequities in global surgery through dialogue, events, and research. Find out more about this work at decolonizingglobalsurgery.org or watch past coalition events here. 

We know that at Lifebox we can do better by actively working to tackle inequalities in all forms. We welcome your comments and suggestions on this work. Email [email protected]

Kris Torgeson, and the Lifebox team