As the global development sector grapples with decolonization and calls to “shift the power,” a reckoning with long-accepted language is also taking place. Devex asked members of the development community for their take on some alternatives to the status quo for terms most used in our media coverage.
In a series of polls in the Devex — International Development group on LinkedIn, we asked for your preferences and alternatives for terms including decolonization, local organizations, capacity building, LGBTQI+, people who menstruate, or developing countries.
While broad equity language guides “are proliferating,” development-specific repositories are less common. Oxfam’s "Inclusive Language Guide" released earlier this year is an extensive resource for common English-language terms in the nonprofit sector. Yet with this project, Devex sought to hear perspectives on the words we often encounter in our coverage directly from global development professionals in our community, in an effort to spark debate and help inform our news coverage.
About the author
Honesty Pern@honypern
Honesty Pern is the Opinions Editor at Devex. Before this, she managed the News Production team, overseeing newsletter, website, and editorial production. Prior to joining Devex in 2017, she worked at an urban rights NGO in Phnom Penh, and she has previously held positions at community-based NGOs in Australia and Russia. She is originally from France.
