BACKGROUND:
Global health challenges—including pandemics, climate change, and zoonotic diseases—demonstrate that health is intrinsically linked to ecological, social, economic, and cultural systems. The WHO’s “One Health” framework seeks to integrate human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health. However, prevailing public health models remain largely grounded in Western technocratic epistemologies. This has contributed to “epistemicide”: the historical marginalization and erasure of Indigenous, endogenous, and non-Western knowledge systems. As a result, current approaches often fail to reflect the lived realities, worldviews, and governance traditions of communities in the Greater South.

METHODS:
This article adopts a transdisciplinary, comparative, and decolonial methodology grounded in epistemic pluralism and an endogenous framework: Tsawalk, Saytk’ilhl Wo’osim’, Enowkinwixw, and Hahuulism. It draws on literature review, comparative case analysis, and endogenous knowledge frameworks from the Greater South. The analysis critically engages with the “One Health” model and examines how Indigenous philosophical concepts can inform more inclusive and context-sensitive health governance and multisectoral program design, planning, and implementation. Case studies are drawn from Ethiopia, Ecuador, Haiti, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and India.

RESULTS:
The findings indicate that current “One Health” and global health frameworks insufficiently integrate Indigenous and endogenous knowledge systems, thereby reinforcing epistemological hierarchies. The study identifies four key endogenous concepts—Tsawalk (interconnectedness), Saytk’ilhl Wo’osim’ (reciprocity and resource sharing), Enowkinwixw (inclusive and consensual decision-making), and Hahuulism (equitable coexistence and worldview synthesis)—as foundational principles for decolonized and inclusive health governance. Structurally embedding these concepts enhances community ownership and ecological sustainability.

CONCLUSIONS:
The article concludes that “One Health” must evolve toward an epistemically pluralistic and decolonized model. Recognizing health as relational, cultural, spiritual, and local is essential for achieving cognitive justice. Structurally integrating endogenous knowledge systems into health and development governance can produce more just, resilient, and locally grounded outcomes for communities in the Greater South.