As African development workers based in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, we’ve been using the expression “sub-Saharan Africa” ourselves for years. Yet it makes no geographic sense, contributes to reinforcing stereotypes, and plays a role in perpetuating post-colonialist patterns of oppression in global development — so we’ve stopped using it.
As part of a multidonor fund working in eastern and southern Africa, we are used to the language that goes with the job. Over the last couple of years however, the focus of the organization we work at, Firelight, has been on consciously trying to shift power from the global north to communities in Africa, and it’s a process that has made us sit down and reflect on how we were actually doing this — and how we talk about what we are doing.
During one of these reflection sessions, a colleague mentioned an article about the negative associations of the term “sub-Saharan Africa” and it got us thinking and inspired us to do our own research. Here’s what we found.
About the authors
Tomaida Banda
Tomaida Banda is a Zimbabwe-based program officer for child and youth rights, care, and protection.
Ronald Kimambo
Ronald Kimambo is a learning and evaluation officer based in Tanzania and develops and implements monitoring, evaluation, and learning frameworks for Firelight’s strategic initiatives.
