Section outline

  • Resources

    SIDA Inclusive Language Guide (2024)
    This inclusive language guide aims to help colleagues avoid bias, stop reinforcing existing power structures, and convey respect. Tthis language guide hopes to ensure our language is
    contributing to—not getting in the way of—the fundamental changes we are looking to make in the world: equality, inclusion, fairness, decolonisation, and global justice.

    Credit: Scotland's International Development Alliance

    Transforming Partnerships in International Cooperation (2023)
    The report aims to provide practical resources for civil society, donors, INGOs, and intermediaries. It is part of a series on decolonizing the sector, following two previous reports: “Time to Decolonize Aid” and “Race, Power, and Peacebuilding”.

    For this Domain, see: Communication and language (pg 34)

    Credit: Peace Direct

    Localisation of Aid: Are NGOs Walking the Talk (2017)
    This review looks at the current opportunities, challenges and good practice in the relationships between INGOs and local humanitarian actors. It argues that INGOs have to improve their partnership practices with local and national NGOs to better recognize and respond to their leadership, as well as to adapt accordingly their advocacy, media or fundraising work.

    Section 4: Communication, fundraising and funding
    Section 4 discusses the challenges and contradictions faced by International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) in their efforts to shift power towards local partners, particularly in the context of communication, fundraising, and funding.

    Credit: Shifting the Power Consortium and START Network
    Taking British politics and colonialism out of our language: Bond’s language guide (2021)
    The guide emphasizes the need to move away from language that reinforces colonial or outdated thinking and to adopt a more progressive, inclusive, and locally-led approach. It outlines principles for language use, suggests alternatives to problematic terms, and encourages consistent language that aligns with values of equality, diversity, and inclusion.

    Credit: Bond
    Inclusive Language Guide (2023)
    The guide aims to reflect Oxfam’s values and work, emphasizing the power of language to either reinforce or deconstruct systems of power that maintain poverty and inequality. It covers thematic sections on gender justice, disability, mental health, race, power, decolonization, and more, providing examples and advice for inclusive language use.

    Credit: Oxfam
    Dochas Guide to Ethical Communications (2023)
    The Guide is a support to organisations seeking to implement best practice in ethical communications. It outlines key considerations (including locally led action) and good practice for those working with imagery and messages in development and humanitarian settings.

    Credit: Dochas
    Putting the people in the pictures first: Ethical guidelines for the collection and use of content (2019)
    The guidance is about ethical practices for collecting and using content such as images and stories in international development work.

    Credit: Bond
    Who Owns the Story? (2022)
    The study explores the impact of fundraising appeals created by the people they are intended to help versus those created by the charity itself. This study challenges the traditional approach to INGO storytelling and suggests a more participatory and ethical method can be both effective and empowering.

    Credit: Amref Health Africa
    Storytelling 101 (2021)
    This page discusses ethical storytelling in non-profit marketing, emphasizing the importance of respecting and empowering the individuals whose stories are being told. 

    Credit: Sidekick Manifesto

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