In our dedication to shifting power within ‘global development’, we have often reflected that one of the most overlooked but most influential aspects of any power structure is the language and terminology that we use in our everyday work. Language is powerful in any context – to name the world is to make it. 

To be fair, in many parts of our lives, terminology can be helpful – it can provide clear guidance, warnings, consistency, or clarity. But language also holds, imbues and exercises power and word choice can often reflect the biases of the language bearers.

Much of the language used in global development began during the colonial times and was both embraced by and privileged Global North, Western-normative and elite institutions, ideas, practices, and more. This is not to say that it hasn’t changed in the last 50 years. But even today, when it is seemingly neutral or benign, it still de-humanises people and papers over harms by euphemizing negatives, without us even being conscious of it. The language of global development embodies the power relations that many are trying to change by keeping alive mental models of in-groups and out-groups, where the accent is on the difference and the less-ness of the out-groups.

What follows is a critique of just a few terms that are very commonly used in current practice (even – regrettably – by us!) that we believe need to be replaced as we foster new mental models that support power redistribution.

International Development – ‘Development’ assumes that those who are the recipients of international philanthropy or aid are ‘‘under-’’ or ‘‘un-developed’’. Whether economic or human, ‘development’ is an evolution of the racist civilized/un-civilised to categorize and stature peoples which began as early as the Enlightenment and evolved further during the colonial period.

The explicit assumption is that ‘‘development’’ is the state that has been attained (or ordained) by mostly Western, majority-white nations or peoples who are ‘‘developed,’’ the state to which others, who are ‘‘un- or under-developed’’, need to aspire, only getting there with the beneficence and expertise of those who are already ‘‘developed’’.

The addition of the term ‘‘international’’ as a co-joiner to ‘‘development’’ only serves to reinforce the supremacy of these majority-white, Western nations and their actors and institutions, because it conveys that anything that is not inside ‘‘their’’ borders is deemed ‘‘international,’’ despite the fact that it is actually very ‘‘national’’ to its recipients. Used in this way, ‘‘international’’ is not only ‘‘other’’ but homogenous, universalised, massive and somewhere else.

Global best practice – Today, the global development system is based on Western-constructed visions of what outcomes non-Western populations should achieve and how, where, when and why they should achieve them. Not only are the outcomes decided by external actors, the processes and methods to achieve those outcomes are also pre-determined based on theories of behavioural or social change created by ‘‘experts’’, trained in the Western, Cartesian and hyper-intellectual problem-solving approach.

Almost universally, international philanthropic institutions and the INGOs they fund support Western norms and practices (validated by data generated using methods created in the West) as truths, labeling them (inaccurately) as ‘‘global best practices.’’ These ‘‘global best practices’’ not only deny or ignore culture, knowledge, experience, expertise and heritage in non-white or western communities, they demean it.

Intervention – When humans intervene, the process is intentional, staged in order to prevent a bad situation from becoming worse or to prevent harm. We never intervene when things are going well. While the alternative terms on offer such as ‘‘project’’ or ‘‘program’’ are no better as they effectively quantify and commoditize human lives and systems, the term ‘‘intervention’’ is especially problematic. ‘Intervention’ is a brutal term invoking a strong and powerful, necessary interference or modification from the outside, necessitated by failure, incapacity or something bad, dangerous or wrong. To use it to describe the work we do is not only violent, it is insulting to those who we say we seek to help.

Beneficiary – A ‘beneficiary’ is defined as one that receives a benefit, that receives help or an advantage from something. Often used in the context of a gift or a windfall, the term also confers beneficence on the giver. Its use in global development is problematic because it continues the ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘them’’ dynamic, the ‘‘needy’’ and the ‘‘giver.’’ It is a term that ignores the fact that much of the inequity that global development and philanthropy aims to address was actually created by extractive norms and practices and it denies the power and capacity that many individuals, communities and groups inherently have, reducing them to mere recipients of the largess of others.

Impact – ‘Impact’ is what one car does to another when they crash. Every dictionary definition of the term involves force – striking, impinging, against, pressing together. It is also an action driven by one person or thing that occurs to another – it involves an active participant and a passive participant. Even if we ignore the violent nature of the term, sadly, this idea of a central actor and action being ‘done’ to a passive person or group is endemic to current models of development and continues the harmful power imbalance within the sector.

The ground or the field: These terms , which seem so innocuous, are rarely questioned. But why are the lived realities and systems of humans referred to as ‘‘the ground’’? While we would not want to deny the importance of place, planet, soil, earth, ‘the ground’ is what we walk on, it is ‘below’. Not surprising perhaps then that those we seek to support are always on ‘the ground.’ Why are they not ‘‘the center’’? Similarly, fields are for growing crops or grazing livestock. Why do we universalize that any time we leave our conference rooms or our offices that we must be going into a ‘‘field’’? Are all of our communities pastoral? Surely not!

Bottom-up/Top-down: Why in development do we place humans in hierarchies? And why do we place those very citizens whose lives and systems are at the center of any work at the ‘bottom’? In order to shift power we need to be aware of and push back against this pervasive ordering of human worth.

We are deeply aware that these are just some examples of terminologies that maintain the inequitable global development system that exists today and we have not offered alternatives. Indeed, some terms we continue to use, much to our chagrin. We believe that a true shifting of power requires new terms to come but not from us, from those whose lives, systems and futures are today marginalized by current development practices and – of course – by its terminology. We look forward to supporting that process in a true shifting of power.

Marieme, Nina and Ben are co-facilitators of the Humanising Development Collective, an emerging, collaborative process to support a global center and space for positive development practices and paradigms.

Nina Blackwell (Australia/USA) – Nina is the former Executive Director of the Firelight Foundation. She has been privileged by philanthropy and international development in a myriad of ways and – as such – is committed to shifting power to where it should belong – with activists, communities and citizens.

Marieme Fall (Senegal) – has experience in research monitoring and evaluation through work conducted with iNGOs in Senegal, but also international universities.

Beniamino Cislaghi (Italy) – has collaborated with several NGOs (Oxfam, Tostan, Save, Care, Plan), UN organizations (UNICEF, ILO, WHO), and Universities (including Stanford, Columbia, Hopkins, Makerere).