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.