Glossary

A newcomer to the land of international development might be stunned by the “jargon monoxide.” The international development community employs a lexicon denoted by “racist, militaristic, and paternalistic language.” It’s also a load of alphabet soup and gobbledygook. This glossary shares the insider definitions of key terms (“AidSpeak”) and the official ones. It also explains why some terms are now considered problematic and introduces inclusive language.

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501c3

  • “Section of the Internal Revenue Code that designates an organization as charitable and tax-exempt. Organizations qualifying under this section include religious, educational, charitable, amateur athletic, scientific or literary groups, organizations testing for public safety or organizations involved in prevention of cruelty to children or animals. Most organizations seeking foundation or corporate contributions secure a Section 501(c)(3) classification from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).” (Glossary of Nonprofit & Community Foundation Terms)
  • “A [501c3] public charity is essentially the traditional “charity” in most people’s minds; it typically conducts a direct charitable activity for public benefit and receives a significant amount (at least one-third) of its financial support from the general public or government units.” (Charity Watch 2016. Celebrity Charity Finances Are Hidden Behind Closed Doors)
  • “a [501c3] private foundation is typically controlled by family members or a small group of individuals, its support comes from a small number of sources and investment income, and its main activity usually is making grants to other charitable organizations.”(Charity Watch 2016. Celebrity Charity Finances Are Hidden Behind Closed Doors)

A

Abroad

😏 Anywhere but America or Europe

Accountability

  • 😏 “accountability for results” – we keep all our promises by issuing new promises (@bill_easterly 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • 😏 “A high-stakes game of “Hot Potato” where the potato is blame, and it’s always the farmer’s turn to hold it. Donors get NGOs to get communities to explain why they’re still poor, all while the donors are flicking back crumbs of aid allocated from the exploitative global trade that made communities poor in the first place. I’m not suggesting it’s the equivalent of a company polluting a river upstream and then hiring the villagers downstream as “Water Quality Monitors” to document their own poisoning, am I?” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)
  • Accountability can be defined as “answerability for performance … and holding organizations responsible for performance against pre-established objectives” by official aid agencies. (Eyben, 2008. Power, Mutual Accountability, and Responsibility in the Practice of International Aid)

Advocacy

To many of the BINGOs, this means (meant) lobbying US government for money, ideally earmarked to their cause.

Africa

Aid

Also known as “foreign aid”, “the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population. Aid can be economic, military, or emergency humanitarian (e.g., aid given following natural disasters).” (Brittanica Money)

Aid Effectiveness

  • “Aid effectiveness is the degree of success or failure of international aid (development aid or humanitarian aid). Concern with aid effectiveness might be at a high level of generality (whether aid on average fulfils the main functions that aid is supposed to have), or it might be more detailed (considering relative degrees of success between different types of aid in differing circumstances).” (Wikipedia)
  • See Value for Money

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD)

“An approach to working with and in communities that counteracts the prevailing focus on community needs and deficits. The approach begins by recognizing the assets of the community, including volunteer groups and associations, and shows how organizing to mobilize those assets is key to asserting the power and agency to bring about change.” (ABCD Institute)

B

Backronym

A humorous or clever phrase deliberately created to form an acronym, where the words are chosen after the acronym has been created, typically to make the acronym more memorable, funny, or meaningful. (adapted from Wikipedia).

Baseline

😏 “A point which is so low that positive results are the only possible outcome” (@ANLevine 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Beltway bandits

  • Also known as a contractor. “Beltway bandit is a term for private companies located in or near Washington, D.C., whose major business is to provide consulting services to the federal government of the United States. The phrase was originally a mild insult, implying that the companies preyed like bandits on the generosity of the federal government, but it has lost much of its pejorative nature and is now often used as a neutral, descriptive term.” (Wikipedia, 2025: Beltway Bandit)
  • Fun fact – A burglar earned the moniker first. The term ‘Beltway Bandit’ was applied to the nefarious behavior of Joseph Francis Fearon of Fairfax. Application of the term to today’s military industrial complex wasn’t until the late 1970s.(Ghosts of DC, 2018: Origin of Term Beltway Bandit)

Beneficiaries⚠ Problematic term

  • 😏 “The people who make it possible for us to be paid by other people” (@monanicoara 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • Why it’s problematic: “To be a beneficiary implies a relational weakness to the benefactor. It also implies that what she receives is bene or good. Descriptively, “beneficiary” partially works: in the current system of aid and philanthropy beneficiaries are, in fact, largely disempowered; at the same time, however, it’s questionable that what they’re receiving is all that bene.” (Feedback Labs, “Do you still use the word beneficiary?“)

Benevolent indignities

Best practice

😏 “The development sector’s equivalent of your grandmother’s secret recipe that everyone tries to recreate but somehow tastes wrong in every other kitchen.The industry’s comfort blanket clutched tightly whenever anyone suggests trying something new or, heaven forbid, asking local people what they think might work.The word “best” works heroically to avoid questions like “best for whom?” and “best under what conditions?” “(Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Bilateral aid

“This is the most common form of state-run assistance. Bilateral aid describes the situation when one government directly allocates help (in the form of money or other assets) to a receiving nation (usually a developing economy). Bilateral help is determined by strategic, political, and humanitarian considerations. Some of the goals that donors wish to achieve are to promote democracy, economy, and peace in specific regions.” (Daniil Filipenco, 2024: What is international aid?)

BINGO (Big international non governmental organization)

BOGO (Buy One Give One)

For every product sold, a company donates an equivalent product or service to those in need. (Cause Artist, 2024: Buy-One-Give-One Model (BOGO): Pros and Cons)

Borehole

  • “a long thin hole in the ground which produces water” (Carter, 2012: Boreholes and trees – why drilling supervision matters)
  • “Drilling rigs, whether percussion or rotary, help to construct water boreholes. These rigs may reach the water table considerably further than human excavators. Boreholes dug using current methods are deeper and narrower than the average traditional well. Because of its greater depth, a water borehole can supply water reliably and consistently. Drilling involves using plastic or steel casing to stop impurities and keep the borehole walls from collapsing. A liner may only sometimes be necessary if the earth can support itself….If built correctly, a borehole can provide access to clean water, and with the right treatments, the purification method can turn it into a drinking standard.” (Antony Muya, 2024: The Difference between a Well and a Water Borehole)

Bottom-up

  • 😏 “Don’t ask someone what might work, just make something up instead” (@thejoeturner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • 😣 “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.”(Alliance Magazine, 2023: We Need a New Vocabulary in Development)

Bottoms-up development

😏 “Downing single-malt whiskey in one shot at Davos” (@Arvind11d123 2011: AidSpeak Dictionary)

Bottom of the pyramid (market)

“Term in economics that refers to the poorest two-thirds of the economic human pyramid, a group of more than four billion people living in abject poverty.” (Britannica Money: Bottom of the Pyramid, accessed 8-14-2025)

Bristol Stool Scale

A diagnostic medical tool designed to classify the form of human faeces into seven categories. It is used in both clinical and experimental fields. (Wikipedia, Bristol stool scale, accessed 8-14-2025)

Business development

Fundraising from the US government

C

Capacity

  • “The United Nations Development Programme (2006) offers a broad definition for capacity as “the ability of individuals, institutions and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives in a sustainable manner”. Such capacity includes not only technical abilities, skills and knowledge, but also attitudes and motivations.” (Africa Evidence Network, 2023: Manifesto on Capacity Development for Evidence Informed Decision Making)
  • “Capacity encompasses the knowledge, skills, and motivations, as well as the relationships that enable an actor—an individual, an organization, or a network—to take action to design and implement solutions to local development challenges, to learn and adapt from that action, and to innovate and transform over time.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

😣 Capacity building/capacity development⚠ Problematic term

  • 😏 Teach them what they already know (@fauvevivre 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • 😏 “Aid agencies provide training to people in recipient communities to build the capacities that the aid-providing community deems are missing.” (Time to Listen)
  • The “process of building and strengthening the systems, structures, cultures, skills, resources, and power that organizations need to serve their communities.” (April Nishimura, Roshni Sampath, Vu Le, Anbar Mahar Sheikh & Ananda Valenzuela, 2020: Transformational Capacity Building)

😇 Capacity Strengthening✓ Preferred term

“Local capacity strengthening is a strategic and intentional investment in the process of partnering with local actors—individuals, organizations, and networks—to jointly improve the performance of a local system to produce locally valued and sustainable development outcomes.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

Cash Transfers

  • “(also referred to as cash assistance or cash grants ) describes assistance provided in the form of money – either physical currency or e-cash* – to recipients (individuals, households, or communities). Cash transfers are unrestricted by definition, which means recipients can choose how to use the assistance. As such, cash is distinct from restricted modalities including vouchers and in-kind assistance. The terms ‘cash’ or ‘cash assistance’ should be used when referring specifically to cash transfers only (i.e., ‘cash’ or ‘cash assistance’ should not be used to mean ‘cash and voucher assistance’).” [* ‘Cash’ is here applied broadly to include both physical currency and different forms of e-cash/digital payments, but typically in regular use ‘cash’ refers only to physical currency (coins, notes).] (CALP Network, Glossary of Terms)
  • More cash transfer terms defined here.

Cause Marketing

😏 A form of social washing (eg Breast Cancer Pink, One Campaign Project Red)

Change Agent

😏 “Someone whose job it is to ensure change happens without upsetting anyone in power. Rarely seen in actual danger zones, but frequently spotted at conferences on disruption, innovation summits, and workshops on “challenging the status quo” (a sumptuous buffet lunch included). Masters of the art of revolutionary rhetoric combined with risk-averse implementation, smooth enough not to jolt the next grant cycle off the road.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Changemaking

  • “the process of identifying a problem or challenge and working to create positive change.It can take many forms, from grassroots activism to policy advocacy, and can happen at the individual, organizational, or societal level.” (Youthtopia, What is Changemaking? Accessed 11-12-2025)
  • (see also change agent; heropreneur)

Charity

“the international assistance system has taken steps to shift from response to prevention, from reacting to crises to solving problems proactively. The guiding language has changed from “charity” to “capacity building” ” (Anderson, Brown, and Jean. 2012: Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid)

Chief of Party

A program manager for a USAID program (usually only Americans can apply)

Civil society (organization)

  • 😏 “Civil society involvement”: consulting the middle class employee of a US or European NGO” (@dangay 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • “another name for the nonprofits, social movements, and citizens’ groups of many different kinds that have been a pivotal force for good, from the struggle against slavery to pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran” (Small Change: Why Business Won’t Change the World)
  • The UNDP definition of civil society organizations (CSOs) encompasses a diverse range of actors engaged in not-for-profit activities including policy advocacy groups, transnational coalitions, NGOs, indigenous peoples’ organizations, women’s and youth groups, social movements, volunteer associations, professional and media associations, think tanks, academia and trade unions. (UNDP, 2014: UNDP Guidelines on Engaging with Faith-based Organizations and Religious Leaders)

Clownonialism

🤡 The act of shamelessly co-opting, appropriating work from Global South, Indigenous, and other historically oppressed and marginalized communities, to repackage and rebrand as your own work, sell for your own profit and to be known as ‘tHouGhT leAdeR” (Cinthya Sopaheluwakan)

CLTS (community led total sanitation)

  • An approach for empowering communities to completely eliminate open defecation (OD). It focuses on collective hygiene behaviour change stimulated by facilitators from within or outside the community. CLTS involves no hardware subsidy and does not prescribe latrine models. (CLTS Foundation, “What is CLTS?”)
  • See ODF (open defecation free)

Collaboration

“The process of facilitating and operating in multi-organisational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved, or solved easily, by single organisations’ (Agranoff and McGuire (2004, p. 4), quoted in Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South, 2023)

Collective Action / Collective Impact

  • “Collective impact initiatives involve a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants.” (Collective Impact, 2011)
  • One key principle of changemaking is that change is not something that can be achieved by one person alone. It requires the collective efforts of individuals and groups working together towards a common goal. That’s why changemaking often involves building networks, partnerships, and alliances to leverage the strengths and resources of different stakeholders.(Youthtopia, What is Changemaking? Accessed 11-12-2025)

Community

Community development

  • “A practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through the organisation, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings.” (Towards Shared International Standards for Community Development Practice, 2023)
  • Different from community driven

Community driven development / community driven change

Community foundation

Individuals giving back to their communities; this can follow an immediate and informal set-up to address a specific need or the more structured and formally organized provision of longer-term support to meet community needs ((Sachs, 2014) in Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South, 2023)

Community water point

  • A shared source of water that serves multiple households, often found in rural areas where individual household connections to municipal water systems are deemed infeasible by governments or donors. These points can include wells, taps, or standpipes
  • See also handpump

Complexity

😏 “The respectable word for “this would require us to do something difficult, so let’s study it instead.” Like describing a deliberately tied knot as “spontaneously emergent entanglement” to avoid the awkwardness of untying it. Or like insisting you can’t make a sandwich because bread, filling, and hunger exist in a non-linear adaptive relationship requiring further stakeholder dialogue. Most frequently diagnosed in problems whose solutions would upset donors, governments, or anyone with a yacht.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Compliance

😏 “A theological framework wherein suffering through bureaucratic purgatory proves your worthiness to receive money that was morally yours anyway. The more forms you correctly complete, the closer you get to grace (funding), though heaven remains perpetually one more audit away.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Container-based sanitation (CBS)

“A sustained sanitation service with no digging involved, quick to install and requiring minimal space; featuring toilets with containers that are frequently sealed and collected, so that the waste can be safely treated, reused or disposed of.” (Container-Based Sanitation Alliance, accessed 11-12-2025)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business model that encourages companies to operate in ways that enhance society and the environment while being accountable to their stakeholders and the public. (Investopedia, accessed 8-1-2025)

D

Dead Aid

“Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo claimed that foreign aid should be eliminated due to its harmful impacts and inefficient use; Outside-in decision making = failure; Wealthy nations sending foreign assistance to Africa does this through a reciprocal obligation to purchase goods and services from donor country; Implementing “helpful” measures from a country outside is usually inefficient – they do not know what is like and what helps locally.” (Brainscape Flashcards, Stuff We Don’t Want)

Decolonization

“Decolonization is the process of undoing colonization…Taken literally, decolonization means that the land that was stolen is returned, and sovereignty over not only the land and its resources but also over social structures and traditions is granted back to those from whom it was all stolen. Yet decolonization defined like this tends to get stuck and make no headway at all. The truth is, there is no future that does not include the settlers occupying Indigenous lands. Today, in the twenty-first century, Indigenous lives and settler lives—families and businesses—are intertwined. This is simply the pragmatic reality of today’s world. What we can focus on with decolonization is stopping the cycles of abuse and healing ourselves of trauma. In this way we expand our possibilities for the future.” (Edgar Villanueva 2020: Decolonizing Wealth Project)

Demand-driven approach

😏 “you create the demand and then you respond to it” (Bill Easterly, 2011: AidSpeak Dictionary)

😠 Developing Country⚠ Problematic term

“A country which, relative to other countries, has a lower average standard of living…The main criticism of using the term developing country is that the categories of “developing” and “developed” are not actually useful tools when analyzing international development. Dividing all countries into these two categories obscures massive variance within each category” (Britannica Money, accessed 11-12-2025)

Why it’s problematic:

  • Implies some countries are “finished” fighting poverty. Who decides what fully developed is?
  • Thinking of countries as developing is far too simplistic. It puts them on a scale from “less developed” to “more developed”, where the ultimate goal is to be closer to our end of the scale, and further from theirs.
  • We also hate “Global South”, “poor countries”, and “Third World”.” (Guest Roast: 9 Development Phrases We Hate and Suggestions for a New Lexicon)

✓ Better alternatives: Use the name of the country or region. If you’re trying to refer to people who don’t live in the U.S. or Europe, use global majority. Resource-limited settings.

Development

  • 😏 A term many INGOs use to mask fundraising
  • The process of helping a community or country achieve a set of criteria determined by globally shared goals
  • Problematic: The stories NGOs tell about poverty in ‘post-colonial’, or ‘global south’ contexts are grounded in the concept of development. The development concept can be seen as a constructed framework that portrays post-colonial poverty as a natural condition, solvable through financial, technical, and knowledge-based transfers of aid. As a framework, development is criticised for erasing the role that racism, colonialism, and poor transitions to independence have played in creating and maintaining ‘global south’ poverty (Pledge for Change, Pledge for Change Storytelling Panel Working definitions)

Development Community

“The development community includes policy experts, public intellectuals, economists, and other social scientists…who work for the aid agencies of rich-country governments, international aid agencies like the World Bank, think tanks like the Brookings Institution, and philanthropies like the Gates Foundation, or as consultants or advisers to any of the above.” (William Easterly, The Tyranny of Experts)

Diaspora

  • People who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere. Diasporas contribute to the development of their countries of origin through the promotion of foreign investment, trade, access to technology, and remittances (International Migration 2020 Highlights).
  • See remittances

Donor

E

Empowerment

Entrepreneurial

  • 😏 “Vaguely innovative and cool, but definitely nothing to do with the hated “market” ” (@jselanikio 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • See Social Entrepreneur

Equitable

Coming soon

Evaluation

“A mystery where the detective already knows whodunit (success), whytheydunit (our intervention), and howtheydunit (our theory of change), and just needs enough evidence to confirm it. Conducted by a consultant who flies in after the fact, visits pre-selected “model” beneficiaries, and turns three happy anecdotes into a “statistically significant trend.” Their report will conclude all objectives were met, filing the fact that the project collapsed a week after closing under “sustainability challenges for future learning.” (Please don’t forget that donors have back donors and they all need to continue eating.)” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Events

😏 Fancy dinners to celebrate rich people. Some of the money makes it to poor people.

Evidence-based

😏 “A magical phrase that transforms a wild guess into an irrefutable fact by adding a citation. It functions as an intellectual fig leaf, covering the nakedness of a decision already made for political or budgetary reasons. Not to be confused with “evidence-adjacent” (we saw a report on a similar topic once) or “evidence-inspired” (we really, really felt it was true).” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Experienced aid practitioner

😏 “Has large number of air miles in account” (@thejoeturner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Expat⚠ Problematic term

‘Who is an expat, anyway?’. Here are the main conclusions: “Some arrivals are described as expats; others as immigrants; and some simply as migrants. It depends on social class, country of origin and economic status. It’s strange to hear some people in Hong Kong described as expats, but not others. Anyone with roots in a western country is considered an expat … Filipino domestic helpers are just guests, even if they’ve been here for decades. Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese are rarely regarded as expats … It’s a double standard woven into official policy. (Mawuna Remarque Koutonin, 2015: Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants?)

Expert

😏 “I read a book about the place on the plane” (@savo_heleta 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

F

Facipulation

  • 😏 “After repeated attempts at facilitation, however, even the most noble Expat Aid Workers realize that if they want to succeed at their job, rather than facilitation, they need to learn the gentle art of facipulation: a delicate blend of facilitation (catalyzing, easing and supporting conversations and actions around themes and issues important to the community and/or program participants) and manipulation (steering conversations towards their INGO’s established themes and goals, and ensuring that actions and decisions made by local people support their INGO’s interests and happen within the time frame stipulated by their donors).” (Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like, 2011: Facipulation)
  • 😏 The noble art of “facipulation” which involves appearing neutral while gently herding a group of adults toward the pre-determined conclusion that was in your brief from the donor. Professional facilitators can turn “this is a terrible idea” into “what I hear you saying is you have some concerns we can address in the implementation phase,” and “we really don’t want this” into “there’s some hesitation we’ll need to work through.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Failing forward

Sharing negative outcomes as well as positive outcomes, so that lessons can be learned and carried forward (Fail Fast, Fail Forward, Fail Openly: The Need to Share Failures in Development 2020)

Faith based organization (FBO) or religious NGOs

  • 😏 Pretty much any organization that thinks it can do the same things that didn’t work in the past with better results.
  • “Formal organizations whose identity and missions are self-consciously derived from the teachings of one or more religions and spiritual traditions and which operates on a non-profit, independent voluntary basis to promote and realize collectively articulated ideas about the public good at the national or international level” (Berger, 2003, in The Role of Faith Based Organizations in Development: A Critical Analysis).
  • “Entities that operate within a religious framework to address social issues and promote community welfare. They play a significant role in social change by providing humanitarian aid, advocating for social justice, and fostering community development, often guided by their moral and ethical teachings.” (The Role of Faith-Based Organizations in Social Change 2025)
  • Fun fact: Faith-based nonprofits constitute almost 60 percent of USA-based international development organizations (Faith-Based International Development Work: A Review, 2016)

Family foundation

“Family foundation” is not a legal term, and has no precise definition. Approximately two-thirds of the estimated 44,000 private foundations in the U.S. are believed to be family managed. A foundation whose funds are derived from members of a single family (Council on Foundations). At least one family member must continue to serve as an officer or board member of the foundation, and as the donor, they or their relatives play a significant role in governing and/or managing the foundation throughout its life. Most family foundations are run by family members who serve as trustees or directors on a voluntary basis-receiving no compensation; in many cases, second- and third-generation descendants of the original donors manage the foundation.(Glossary of Nonprofit & Community Foundation Terms)

Fecal sludge

“The mixture of excreta, flush water and anal cleansing material that accumulates in the containment; it also often contains garbage thrown in the toilet, including menstrual products. Faecal sludge can range from solid (with waterless toilets) to more fluid (with septic tanks), in which case it is also called septage. Fecal sludge is highly hazardous for human health and for the environment.” (WaterAid Faecal Sludge Management Guide, 2022)

Field/In The Field⚠ Problematic but widely used

  • Problematic, but this is what we all said. My former boss used to say everyone needed to spend “a lot of time in the field.”
  • 😏 “field experience” – “I can’t bear DC anymore” (@MarianaSarastiM 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • 😏 Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like offered this definition: “Thanks in large part to EAW innovation and resilience, we have a new designation for those hardcore badasses who are really doing it: Deep Field. The basic formula is as follows:
    • Nice places: HQ.
    • Places not nice enough to be HQ: The field
    • Really, really bad places: Deep field.
  • See also On the Ground

Fillanthropy

  • 😏 Private not-for-profit money filling the gap left by the retreat of public money. [circa May 2025]
  • “As governments scale back their international public finance commitments, we’re seeing billionaires stepping in to fill the gaps left behind. They’re funding vaccines, climate projects, education programs – even plugging holes in UN budgets. It sounds helpful, and in some ways it is. Foundations can be flexible and innovative, taking risks,piloting new approaches, supporting neglected causes.But this is not a substitute for stable, accountable, democratically governed public finance. It is unaccountable, often opaque, and shaped by elite preferences – not public mandates.At the Global Cooperation Institute we are calling this trend “Fillanthropy” – the growing reliance on private wealth to substitute, not supplement, public international finance.” (Jonathan Glennie LinkedIn post July 17 2025)

Five Fs

A visual tool used to understand and illustrate the pathways through which diseases, particularly those transmitted via the fecal-oral route, can spread. The five Fs are 1) finger; 2) flies; 3) fomites; 4) fluid; and 5) fields

First World / Third World

“By the Cold War, a very distinct world order had emerged – the first world (Western democratic countries that had already developed), the second world (the Soviet Union and its satellite states), and the third world (former colonies in the developing stage that were still fairly dependent on foreign aid).” (Elizabeth Bersin, 2015: Examining Aid Accountability In International Development)

Flexible funding

Also known as general operating support. “In grant-making, there are two main types of funding. The first is restricted funding—that’s money that is restricted to a specific project or set of activities. The second is flexible funding, which is also known as general operating support. That money goes into the recipient’s overall budget—no strings attached. When an organization receives flexible funding, it can use those resources for whatever is necessary to achieve its mission—anything from covering a project not supported by other donors, to responding to an unforeseen crisis or opportunity, to even covering basic costs like office rent and staff salaries.” (Fund 101: What Is Flexible Funding?)

Flying toilet

A “flying toilet” is a plastic bag that is used to collect faeces during in-home defecation and is then thrown into an alley, a waterway, solid waste bin or rooftop. (Sebastien Tilmans, et al, 2015: Container-based sanitation: assessing costs and effectiveness of excreta management in Cap Haitien, Haiti)

“Fly in the eye”

Food Aid

The USDA food programs under Title 1 and Section 416b: Title 1 programs involve concessional (subsidized) sales of food for the stated purpose of promoting export market development for US goods. Section 416b programs involve disposal of surplus production.

😣 Foreign (problematic)⚠ Problematic term

😣 Foreign aid/assistance (problematic)⚠ Problematic term

  • The technical term that researchers use for foreign aid is “Official Development Assistance” (ODA). For money to be counted as official development assistance by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it must be administered “with the promotion of economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective”.(What is foreign aid? How “Official Development Assistance” is measured 2025)
  • Problematic: “let’s not only retire the term “foreign assistance,” but also the way of thinking associated with it. Done well, humanitarian and development assistance is not a handout but the catalyst for a partnership in global stability. And the words we use to describe our work shape incentives around it. “Foreign assistance” implies charity to strangers, prompting policymakers to ask how much altruism they can afford. In contrast, a vocabulary rooted in reciprocity—global health security, climate resilience, and mutual investment—highlights the benefits that flow in every direction. Janti Soeripto & T. Alexander Puutio, 2025: Retire ‘Foreign Assistance’
  • The phrase “foreign aid ” should be retired and replaced by “mutual interest investment” (Jamie Drummond 2025: The demise of foreign aid offers an opportunity: Donors should focus on what works. Much aid currently does not)
  • Or “universal aid.” There’s nothing “foreign” about the need for adequate food, proper nutrition, accessible and affordable medicine and health care, comfortable shelter, good education. Those are all universal needs, shared by us all.

Foundation

  • Foundations are grantmaking public charities that gain their funds from a variety of sources, which may include other foundations, individuals, corporations, or public entities.There is no official IRS or legal definition.
  • Public foundations may engage in fundraising, and may seek broad public financial support. They may or may not have endowments. (Public Foundations, Council on Foundations)
  • Private foundations make grants based on charitable endowments, which come from an individual, a family or a corporation. Because of their endowments, they are focused primarily on grantmaking and generally do not raise funds or seek public financial support the way public charities must. “Private foundation” is an umbrella term that includes corporate, independent, family, and operating foundations. (Private Foundations, Council on Foundations)
  • 😏 A way for rich people to get tax write offs

Form 990

A tax form that a US nonprofit has to file.

Frontlines

In humanitarian organizations, frontline staff—often national staff who live and work in the communities they serve—are the people most directly responsible for engaging with affected communities (Empowering Frontline Staff: A Pathway to Better Community Engagement, 2024)

Funder

See Donor

G

GAAS (“Gray hair as a service”)

The lived experience and hard lessons learned of seeking systemic solutions to the complex systems challenges we are facing. There is a lot of useful (re)discovery of #naturalcapitalism, bioregional economics, #systemsthinking going on, and not a lot of time to address climate change and the rest of them effectively. Those of us who have been around the block a few times and have created some of the early tools, frameworks and financial products can help abbreviate some of the learning curves. (Astrid Scholz, 2025 LinkedIn post)

Gender

😏 “Counting how many women attend your meeting” (@liamswiss 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Gift

If it comes from an individual, it’s usually a gift. A gift is given to the nonprofit with no (or few) strings attached. A donor may make a gift for a specific project or program, and may get their name on a building as thanks for their gift, but beyond that, they don’t really have a lot of involvement what happens to the money after its been given to the organization. A charitable gift cannot be revoked after its been given. For all of these reasons, but especially due to their flexibility, gifts are highly prized in the nonprofit world. (Inside Philanthropy, Grant vs. Gift Explainer)

Global

😏 Over there; everywhere but where the person or funder is based.

Global development / international development

  • “a term that politicians, think tanks and scholars frequently use when they discuss foreign aid…global development refers to the actions countries or organizations take to lend aid to other countries in need around the world.” (The Borgen Project, 2019, What is Global Development?)
  • Global development is a term that is increasingly referred to, yet is often conflated with international development and is used with different implicit meanings…It is a successor to international development and goes beyond a focus only on the Global South to encompass development issues anywhere.” (Horner, R., 2017: What is global development?)

Global North

  • A widely accepted synonym for first-world or developed countries, which are also the richest countries in the world according to metrics like the Gross National Product (GNP) per capita and the Legatum Prosperity Index. The Global North is the economic opposite of the Global South. The term Global North is both unofficial and geographically imprecise. The countries and territories considered by the United Nations to be part of the Global North are shown on this map.(Global North Countries 2025)
  • 😏 “White academics” (@Isla_Misty 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Global South

  • A term coined in 1969 to describe the world’s developing and least developed countries based on economies. They tend to be located in Africa, South America, and Southern Asia—though, perhaps ironically, more Global South countries are located in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere.(Global North Countries 2025)
  • 😏 “Indian academics” (@Isla_Misty 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Go native

“Used humorously, to go native means to take on some (or all) of the culture traits of the people around you, often said of people who go to [other] countries or far away cities. These traits may include dress, language, accent, etiquette, religion, etc.” (Urban Dictionary accessed 12-17-2025)

Grant

Money given to an organization with have specific terms laid out in contractual agreements. Grants are usually awarded based on a proposal or application, and recipients are typically required to provide narrative and financial reports on how the grant was spent. (Inside Philanthropy, Grant vs. Gift Explainer)

Groundwater

“Groundwater is water that exists underground in saturated zones beneath the land surface. The upper surface of the saturated zone is called the water table. Contrary to popular belief, groundwater does not form underground rivers. It fills the pores and fractures in underground materials such as sand, gravel, and other rock, much the same way that water fills a sponge. If groundwater flows naturally out of rock materials or if it can be removed by pumping (in useful amounts), the rock materials are called aquifers….Groundwater is the source of about 40 percent of water used for public supplies and about 39 percent of water used for agriculture in the United States.” (What is groundwater?, USGS accessed 12-17-2025)

H

Handpump

  • Manually operated devices that allow people to access groundwater. Handpumps can be installed in dug wells or drilled wells (see Well)
  • 😏 A pretend solution to the water crisis

Handwashing station

A pretend solution to hygiene. These are popular ways of getting around the provision of a tap with running water at a building, which many must think are too expensive. The way they are supposed to work is that someone – usually a cleaner, usually a woman – is supposed to fill this big jug with water and place it on a stand. The water comes out of a tap at the bottom, is at approximate hand level. The stand sometimes has a holder for soap.

Health care facilities (HCFs)

Hospitals, primary health care centres, isolation camps, burn patient units, feeding centres and others. (Jacob Katuva 2022: Improving water and hand-washing services in rural health care facilities in Kitui County, Kenya)

Heropreneur

  • A founder who is greatly admired, as if a hero, and viewed as the main actor in social progress. A person who starts an organization and who overemphasizes their role as founder, overshading teams, collective impact, and building upon the ideas of others.
  • Heropreneurship: the promotion and hero-worshipping of entrepreneurship as the ultimate sign of success, leading us towards a world with a proliferation of repeated and disjointed efforts and too few people looking to join and grow the best organizations, leading us to a world where noone wants to be. (Daniela Papi-Thornton, 2016. Tackling Heropreneurship)
  • see Sidekick

Humanitarian aid

I

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.” (Alliance Magazine, 2023: We Need a New Vocabulary in Development)
  • 😏 “The confused lovechild of optimism and measurement obsession. The art of claiming credit for any positive correlation within a 100-kilometre radius and calling it causation. Long-term change is “beyond the project scope,” systemic shifts are “difficult to attribute,” but that one kid who got a scholarship? That was definitely, 100%, all us.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Impact Investing

The term impact investing was first coined in 2007 by the Rockefeller Foundation. A basic goal of impact investing is to help reduce the negative effects of business activity on the social or physical environment. It may sometimes be considered an extension of philanthropy. The bulk of impact investing is done by institutional investors, including hedge funds, private foundations, banks, pension funds, and other fund managers. (James Chen, Investopedia, 2025: Impact Investing: Definition, Types, and Examples)

Implementing partners

“These are often brilliant, deeply embedded community-based organisations who predate any project’s existence, and who do way more than just implement our plans and projects.🫣” (Tara Wondraczek, 2025: LinkedIn post)

Indicators

“The development aid equivalent of judging a five-star meal solely by counting the number of carrots in the stew. “Dignity” becomes 5 toilets. “Empowerment” becomes 15 signed attendance sheets. It’s a grand, donor-approved fantasy where counting things is magically mistaken for understanding them. While the community lives a complex, unfolding story of change, the [monitoring and evaluation] team is in the back, loudly noting: “Scene 12: Character appears 70% more empowered (based on pre-post survey)”, faithfully transcribing the noise while completely missing the plot.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Indigenous

“Refers to the original inhabitants of a region, particularly those who maintain cultural, social, and historical ties to their ancestral lands.” (Indigenous, UNESCO, accessed 12-18-2025)

Innovation

  • 😏 “We’re sexy, you want to be associated with us” (@DarajaTz 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • 😏 “The organisational excuse for abandoning something that works but is boring, to chase something that might not work but is clever and exciting, usually involving a buggy app that solves a problem nobody had. Innovation Labs pop up like mushrooms, staffed by people who’ve never implemented a project or ventured beyond the city limits.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Inputs

“input of resources (staff employed, money spent)” (Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering by Judith N. Lasker)

International

  • Everywhere but where the person or funder is based.
  • 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. (Alliance Magazine, 2023: We Need a New Vocabulary in Development)
  • see global

International aid/ development

  • ‘to support the economic development and welfare of developing countries’, according to the official definition of Official Development Assistance, or ODA (OECD definitions, International Aid)
  • International aid (also known as overseas aid or foreign aid) is defined as the assistance from rich and developed states that is given to developing countries. The donors may be governments, non-governmental organizations, development banks, or various international organizations. The help they provide is channeled for a variety of reasons be they moral, philanthropic, political, or economic. Aid is provided in multiple forms, from loans and grants to donations of agricultural equipment. (Development Aid, 2024: What is International Aid)
  • The use of international aid as a foreign policy strategy began in the early 19th century when developed countries, such as Germany and Britain, began providing aid to their colonies overseas. Developed countries built-up the colonies’ infrastructure which mostly served to benefit themselves, however they continued to provide economic support even after colonies gained independence. (The Public Purpose, 2015: Examining Aid Accountability)
  • 😠 “‘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. (Alliance Magazine, 2023: We Need a New Vocabulary in Development)

International non-governmental organization (INGO)

International Drinking Water Decade

The International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade grew out of the World Water Conference in Mar del Plata, Argentina in March 1977, with the goal of providing clean drinking water and sanitation for all by 1990.

International partners

“International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), global private sector firms, and other international organizations when they work with USAID as either direct contractors or recipients or as sub-awardees, whether under acquisition or assistance.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

International donors

“international nongovernmental organizations, global private-sector firms, and other international organizations when they provide development assistance themselves.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

Intervention⚠ Problematic term

  • Aka a project or program
  • 😣 Why it’s problematic: implies an external force “fixing” a problem, rather than collaborating with communities. (Tara Wondraczek, 2025: LinkedIn post)
  • 😣 “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.” (Alliance Magazine, 2023: We Need a New Vocabulary in Development)

Institutional Strengthening

supporting those individuals and teams to strengthen their organizations by developing or improving systems, structures, and policies to function more effectively and achieve goals (CRS, Capacity Strengthening and Transition to Local Ownership)

Ivory Tower

  • Institutions that maintain the white supremacist culture and operate according to the colonizer mantra of divide, control, exploit. (Decolonizing Wealth Toolkit)
  • an impractical often escapist attitude marked by aloof lack of concern with or interest in practical matters or urgent problems (Merriam Webster)

J

Jerry Can

  • 😏 A symbol of low standards for water projects by international development operations.
  • A sturdy, flat-sided container for fuel or water. Many people around the world use these to haul and store their drinking water. The standard five-gallon Jerry Can weighs about 40 pounds when full. (They were originally designed for military use, and so can also be seen as a symbol of colonization.)

K

No entries yet. Know of a term that belongs here? Let us know!

L

Last Mile

  • “In international development terms, reaching the last mile, or rural, often isolated communities, involves reaching villages without paved roads, with little access to communication and poor infrastructure.”(Reaching the Last Mile: Challenges and Opportunities, 2016)
  • The concept of reaching “not only the poorest of the poor, but also the people, places and small enterprise levels that are under-served and excluded, where development needs are greatest, and where resources are most scarce.” (Getting to the Last Mile in Least Developed Countries, 2016)

Latrine

A toilet that, instead of being connected to the sewage system, is connected to cesspits or cesspools. It’s intended to keep feces out of the environment. Often a simple pit with or without a privacy enclosure around the hole.

Leadership

“The art of being the acceptable face of change. Development leaders are celebrated for their ability to speak about transformation without threatening their own position, and to inspire change that never disrupts their salary. (True leadership from below gets called “grassroots organising” and is paid accordingly.) They get trained, profiled, and platformed, while the actual, messy, collective organising that does shift power is dismissed as ” lacking clear leadership structures” and remains unfunded, or just enough to keep them accountable (see above). Leaders are easier to photograph, control, and replace than movements.”(Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Learning (v. or n.)

“What gets ceremoniously scheduled for Q3, then Q4, then next year’s strategic retreat, in an infinite loop. The artfully delayed reckoning with what nosedived, which assumptions were wishful thinking, and what communities said before your communications team “clarified the messaging.” Everyone champions learning organisations with the passion of the recently converted, right up until learning requires admitting you steered the ship directly into the iceberg, which could sink your promotion prospects, donor relationships, and future employment in the sector.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Legacy

  • What many foundations prefer to helping people now.
  • The problems caused by colonization.

Leverage

😏 “We’re not paying for all of this” (@katelmax 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Listening in Color

“The combination of listening openly without controlling the parameters of what can be said; listening with empathy and allowing the experiences of the speaker to permeate; and listening for what is being said beyond the words spoken.” (Decolonizing Wealth Toolkit)

Livelihoods⚠ Problematic term

“Why we hate it. According to Samuel Johnson’s greatest invention, Google, the definition of livelihoods is: “A means of securing the necessities of life”. In the general development context though, livelihoods is (possibly incorrectly) used to describe a way of helping people to generate income. The problem with the word livelihoods is that it has overtones of subsistence. It hints that poor people should only have enough just to live – not to thrive. As Kate Magro says: “Why is it that Westerners have careers, jobs, employment opportunities and everyone else has a livelihood?”” (WhyDev 2012 Guest Roast: 9 Development Phrases We Hate and Suggestions for a New Lexicon)

Local⚠ Problematic term

  • “In international development, local is the polar opposite of ‘world class’ or ‘global’ ” (Margit van Wessel, 2023: Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South)
  • “One of the primary challenges is the lack of a universally accepted definition of localisation. At its core, it’s based on the premise that local actors are closest to the context in which change, or reform is happening. As such, they’re best placed to decide on their own needs and determine how to drive that change. ‘Local’ can refer to a range of entities: community-based organisations, foundations, nationally-funded agencies, local, regional, and national governments, and even private sector players. This diversity raises important questions: Who has the power to define what is ‘local’? How do we prevent a few elite actors from capturing the localisation space?” (Christopher Tomlinson & Shamim Zakaria, 2024: Unpacking localisation in international development: what can we do?)

Locally led development

  • “the key aspects of locally led development are: Representatives of the target groups are involved in project development and strategic and operational decisionmaking; Partnerships are equitable and based on mutual trust and respect. (SwissContact, 2023: Locally Led Development: Swisscontact’s Position And Future Engagement)
  • USAID’s “Locally Led Programs indicator measures, in a given fiscal year, the percentage of USAID-funded activities in which local partners and/or local communities lead development efforts, including priority setting, design, partnership formation, implementation, and defining and measuring results.” (USAID, Locally Led Programs Indicator, October 2023)
  • Problematic: “[M]any INGOs would claim that the work they support is clearly ‘locally led’ by virtue of having country offices based in the South. However, these definitions do not acknowledge that ‘locally led’ does not refer only to local ownership and management, but also to local creation and funding. Thus, the defining feature of locally led initiatives is that they are completely uninfluenced by Northern-centric views of development.” (Themrise Khan in Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South, 2023)

Local actors

“Local actors are individuals, organizations, and networks that originate from and are led by people within a given country or region, inclusive of government at national and sub-national levels.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

Local partners

“individuals, organizations, and networks that originate from and are led by people within a given country or region, inclusive of government at national and sub-national levels when they work with USAID as either direct contractors or recipients or as sub-awardees, whether under acquisition or assistance. (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

Local ownership

one of the pillars of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the term refers to a process where organizations in the Global North hand over decision-making and financial power structures to those in the Global South

Localization⚠ Contested term

  • 😏 The thing everyone champions in speeches but resists in budget meetings. A commitment deferred because local partners “aren’t quite ready yet” for handling resources and authority. Yet somehow international NGOs were born ready. Localisation means endless capacity strengthening to prove readiness, assessments to verify compliance, and frameworks to ensure locals can be trusted with their own problems.”(Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)
  • “loosely defined as the transfer of funding and decision-making powers to local actors” ((Christopher Tomlinson & Shamim Zakaria, 2024: Unpacking localisation in international development: what can we do?)
  • “Localising humanitarian response is a process of recognising, respecting and strengthening the leadership by local authorities and the capacity of local civil society in humanitarian action, in order to better address the needs of affected populations and to prepare national actors for future humanitarian responses.” (OECD Localising the Response)
  • Localization differs from local ownership. It “refers to countries being able to acknowledge their role in their own development that has occurred through foreign aid interventions.” (Themrise Khan in Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South, 2023)
  • 😠 Problematic: “I argue that [“local” and “localization”], used in the context of redefining the relationship between the North and the South in development, are in many ways disconnected from reality. First, neither term includes the idea that development in the Global South could be possible without the involvement of the Global North. This indicates the intention of the North to continue to hold on to the power, as opposed to divesting itself of it. Second, when it comes to civil society, the discussion mostly emphasizes the role of Northern INGOs as intermediaries in the development process rather than stressing the independent role of Southern organizations. In fact, critics of localization claim that the term is both narrow and unclear in its conceptualization of ‘local’ and that the localization ‘agenda’ of many Northern donors and INGOs risks reproducing a colonial approach to the discourse between international and local (Roepstorff, 2020). Third, these discussions are commonly led by and centred on Northern stakeholders in development. Southern government leaders, civil society, and development actors are rarely given the opportunity to interpret these concepts from their point of view.” (Themrise Khan in Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South, 2023)

Log frame

  • 😏 “The sacred tablet upon which donors inscribe their fantasies. A document more binding than a marriage vow and less flexible than a concrete coffin, it demands you predict a future you can’t possibly know. Its primary function is to provide a legally-binding list of reasons to blame you when reality refuses to comply with the project plan. Perfect for managing mistrust between donors and their recipients.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)
  • See inputs, outputs, outcomes (people get really confused about the difference between the last two)

Low-hanging fruit

😏 “We were already going to achieve this anyway” (@Global_ErinH 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Low overhead

😏 “Volunteers run headquarters” (@thejoeturner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

M

Mainstreaming

😏 “Forgetting” (@swampcottage 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Meetings

😏 “Our grant said we had to host an event” (@Global_ErinH 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Microfinance / microloans

😏 “Not as good as sub-prime lending” (@lippytak 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

  • Coming soon
  • Problematic: (Brainscape Flashcards, Stuff We Don’t Want)
    • Designed from an outside-in point of view
    • Reliance on formal indicators is impossible in countries where informal or inconsistent income is normal
    • An statistical increase towards one goal does not translate to its successful implementation – eg higher enrolment in schools does not translate to more educated people (lack of teachers, lack of learning due to sickness, hunger, dropping classes etc)
    • Fails to incorporate agricultural growth
    • Deductive planning misses the interconnected nature of progress everywhere

Ministry

if you’re an American like me, you don’t know much about your own government, never mind other countries. Ministry is NOT religious, it’s the equivalent of Department in the US. And almost every other country uses that term, it seems. It’s sort of like how we say “soccer” and the rest of the world says “football.”

Mission/On Mission

  • It was used for USAID country offices.
  • “Why we hate it. Like “in the field”, “on mission” has some nasty undertones associated it with it that make you think that the phrase belongs in some leathery old hardcover book, not in the 21st Century. Apart from having that delightful Morricone song in our heads whenever someone says they are “on mission”, we also picture a bearded Robert De Niro leaping out of a misty forest, unsheathing his foil from his scabbard. Taking our cues from Mr. De Niro above, we’d like to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that the phrase “on mission” originally derives from the word: missionaries. So, not exactly a great look for the modern-day development worker then.” (WhyDev 2012 Guest Roast: 9 Development Phrases We Hate and Suggestions for a New Lexicon)
  • See: “in the field”.

Moasting

  • The combination of moaning and boasting, often employed by celebrities (Urban Dictionary).
  • An example of Expat Aid Workers moasting, is “Wow – haven’t seen that pattern [of Chacos] yet – are those new?” Response: “Yeah, I wore through my old pair in only 3 months – can you believe it?! The 4 hour roundtrip treks on my mountain bike to the farms to help the villagers plant seeds really takes its toll. This style and design just came out – not many people have them yet.” (Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like, 2011: #39 Chaco Tanlines)

Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) (n.)

“The institutional commitment to accountability theatre. A self-licking ice cream cone where the need to prove impact surpasses the need to create it, perpetuating its own existence as M&E departments multiply, requiring more frameworks, software, and data, until the project spends more time being watched than doing. It’s a brilliant system, as long as you don’t ask why organisations with the most sophisticated M&E are often no more effective than those without.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Monocausotaxophilia

“the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity’s most common cognitive errors.” (“The Ministry for the Future: A Novel” by Kim Stanley Robinson)

Multilateral aid

“This type of foreign aid represents the financial help that one or several developed nations offers to foreign institutions such as the United Nations or the World Bank that, in turn, can use the funding to tackle hunger in poor countries, for example.” (Daniil Filipenco, 2024: What is international aid?)

Multinational corporation

Coming soon

Mutual Aid

  • “Cooperation for the common good.” (Mutual Aid)
  • “A way for people to come together and support each other directly. Instead of relying on big organizations or governments, communities share resources, skills, and care to meet their needs…Mutual aid has been around for centuries. [T]raditions like konbit in Haiti and Indigenous concepts such as the Navajo k’é highlight the long-standing practice of mutual care and reciprocity…Explore its history here.” (Jeremie Jean-Baptiste, 2025: What is mutual aid?)

N

Neocolonialism

the control of less-developed countries by developed countries through indirect means. The term neocolonialism was first used after World War II to refer to the continuing dependence of former colonies on foreign countries (Britannica)

No strings attached

  • Coming soon
  • See unrestricted funds

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

  • “Non-governmental organizations (also known as NGOs) operate separately from the government and work on social and/or political issues.” (Human Rights Careers)
  • “A mission-driven entity that operates independently of government control, focusing primarily on social, humanitarian, or environmental issues. While most NGOs are nonprofit, they may receive funding from various sources, including government grants, private donations, and international institutions. The term “NGO” was introduced in the United Nations Charter in 1945, highlighting their role as voluntary citizen groups working for the public good…According to the World Bank, NGOs can be broadly categorized into two main categories:
    • Operational NGOs: These organizations focus on designing and implementing development-related projects.
    • Advocacy NGOs: These organizations promote specific causes by raising awareness, lobbying, and influencing policies. They work to shape the social and political landscape around particular issues.” (Peter Gratton, 2025: Nongovernmental Organization (NGO): Definition and How It Works)

Nonprofit

“A commonly used word without a common understanding between writer and reader. People often use the words “nonprofit” and “tax exempt” interchangeably. [The American] Congress has created almost three dozen types of tax-exempt organizations in different sections of the tax code. These include Section 501(c)(4) (social welfare organizations, homeowners associations, and volunteer fire companies), Section 501(c)(5) (includes labor unions), Section 501(c)(6) (includes chambers of commerce), and Section 501(k) (child care organizations). Each section identifies certain conditions that must be met to be exempt from paying federal income taxes. The one common condition is not paying out profits (“no part of the organization’s net earnings can inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual”); hence the term, “nonprofit.” Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code refers to “public charities” (also known as charitable nonprofits) and “private foundations.” The tax code considers “churches and religious organizations” (which the IRS defines to include mosques, synagogues, temples, and other houses of worship) to be “public charities.” “(What is a “Nonprofit”? National Council of Nonprofits)

Non-sewered sanitation

Coming soon

Northern led development

“There is no formal definition of Northern-led development in the development literature. However, references to Northern-led development focus on the practices of multilateral and bilateral donor institutions in the Global North, primarily from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, who invest in economic and social development in the Global South. For the present analysis, Northern-led development is defined as approaches and practices initiated by institutions of the Global North with objectives of achieving economic and social development in countries in the Global South. This currently includes the modalities of funding, project design and management, implementation, evaluation, and in-country staffing, all of which tend to be controlled by actors in the Global North.” (Themrise Khan in Reimagining Civil Society Collaborations in Development: Starting from the South, 2023)

O

ODA (Overseas Development Assistance)

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development): Official development assistance (ODA) is government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries. ODA has been the main source of financing for development aid since it was adopted by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) as the “gold standard” of foreign aid in 1969.(OECD, What is ODA? Accessed May 2025)

OECD

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) is a forum and knowledge hub for data, analysis and best practices in public policy. We work with over 100 countries across the world to build stronger, fairer and cleaner societies – helping to shape better policies for better lives. (OECD, Accessed May 2025)

ODF (open defecation free)

Coming soon

One UN initiative

Coming soon

On the ground⚠ Problematic term

  • “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!” (Alliance Magazine, 2023: We Need a New Vocabulary in Development)
  • See also “the field”

Outcomes

“the effect of these activities and investments of time, resources, and money [inputs] on the behavior and well-being of their intended recipients.” (Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work)” by Judith N. Lasker)

Outputs

“number of people who attended a program, educational material distributed) to a focus” (Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work)” by Judith N. Lasker)

Outreach

😏 “Intrude” (@langtry_girl 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Overhead

  • 😏 “[Nonprofit] Overhead is an outdated concept, like lobotomies and racist Halloween costumes. Let’s agree to never voluntarily bring it up. Do you ever hear for-profits talking about their low overhead rate? No, they talk about their quarterly earnings or diversity efforts or chicken sandwiches or whatever; they usually DON’T TALK ABOUT OVERHEAD. Let’s do the same. Let’s talk about our outcomes and how we’re achieving them, not about the ridiculous concept of overhead. Don’t list it on your website. Don’t brag about how 94 cents of every dollar to your org goes to direct service. Don’t bring it up on donor or funder visits. Don’t mention it when making the ask at your gala or luncheon. Don’t emphasize it in your annual report. Remove all instances of it when possible.” (Vu Le, 2019: We Need to Stop Talking About Overhead)
  • Generally defined as a combination of “management,” “general,” and “fundraising” expenses. Based on the Form 990, a nonprofit has three categories of costs: Program, Management and General, and Fundraising. Management and General plus Fundraising make up overhead costs.
    • Program Costs: The costs incurred in connection with a specific program or activity of the organization. These are the costs often referred to as direct costs. Some nonprofits have only one program, others many.
    • Fundraising Costs: Costs that involve seeking, soliciting, or securing charitable contributions. Examples: the portion of a staff member’s salary allocated to development, the fees paid to a fundraising consulting firm, and the fees paid to register the charitable nonprofit for solicitation purposes.
    • Management and General Costs: All the other costs that are needed to operate the organization and are shared across programs. (National Council of Nonprofits, (Mis)Understanding Overhead)

Overseas

  • 😏 any other country. This must come from the UK, an island, because it’s easy for Americans to get to other countries by land.
  • See Abroad

Ownership

😏 “We [the INGO] held a workshop” (@dangay 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

P

Parachuting in

An activity/project offered from one country to another without a) the participation of key stakeholders, such as governments and the private sector and b) based on a weak understanding of the local context. The offerer usually is involved for a limited time.(Ademola Adenle, 2017: Parachuting in courses from the West does African entrepreneurs no good)

Participation

😏 “The right to agree with preconceived projects or programs” (@edwardrcarr 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Participatory stakeholders

😏 “People who should solve their own problems” (@UCGHR 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Partnering with other institutions

😏 “We’re raising barriers to entry” (@JustinWolfers 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Pastoralist

Coming soon

Peace Corps

A gap year (or two) for people who don’t know what to do after college. For many Americans, it was the first step in the ladder of international development career. First the Peace Corps, then an INGO, then USAID/UN organization/World Bank.

People of color (problematic)

I’m of an age where I remember having a light beige-pink crayon called “Flesh”. I had to look this up. I must have had some ancient crayons (maybe at my grandmother’s house?) because Crayola changed “flesh” to “peach” in 1962 (I wasn’t born then). In high school, and far too long afterwards, I shopped for pale tan pantyhose to match my pale legs called “nude.” This assumption that “White” is the default color for humans, I’ve learned, is white supremacy. Trying to lump the majority of people in the world into one term is unnecessary and problematic.

Per diem

😏 “What we have to pay local officials to attend our meetings” (@Afrophile 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Performance

“refers to the extent to which an actor is able to achieve its intended outcomes effectively and consistently. It is the key consideration in determining whether capacity has been changed.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

Performance Improvement

“Programmatic approach that refers to a deliberate process undertaken to improve an actor’s realization of their goals.” (USAID 2022, Local Capacity Strengthening Policy)

Philanthropy

Philanthropy and charity exist in every country. It is not only limited to the Global North. In the 2023 Global Philanthropy Tracker report, 16 of the 47 countries monitored belonged to the Global South. (Themrise Khan, 2025: The end of aid: What The Global South needs to do)

Planned giving

  • Someone leaves money to a charity in their will.
  • 😏 Even if you don’t know how much, you have to be nice to them for the rest of their lives.

Political will

😏 “I have no comprehension of the incentives faced by the people who I wish would do stuff I want” (@m_clem 2011: AidSpeak Dictionary)

Poverty

  • Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1, target 1.1 is “By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day.” (UN Global Goals)
  • Various dimensions of poverty are described by the other Sustainable Development Goals.

Poverty Porn

  • “Poverty porn is a tactic used by nonprofits and charity organizations to gain empathy and contributions from donors by showing exploitative imagery of people living in destitute conditions.” (Nathalie Dortonne, 2016: The dangers of poverty porn)
  • “a term used by development practitioners in the North and in the South to describe the worst of the images that exploit the poor for little more than voyeuristic ends and where people are portrayed as helpless, passive objects. It is a derogatory term…Most readers will know what it means – images of emaciated children with distended bellies or flies in their eyes, used to elicit a response from people who have never encountered this kind of suffering in their everyday lives. These powerful images touch our hearts. They are used by NGOs in the North to raise money for their programs in the South. And they work.” (Betty Plewes and Rieky Stuart, 2009: The Pornography of Poverty: A Cautionary Fundraising Tale)
  • “In June 1981, New Internationalist published ‘Merchants of Misery’, a seminal article by Danish aid worker Jorgen Lissner that launched a blistering attack on the use of images of starving black children in NGO fundraising materials. The piece accused aid agencies of ‘social pornography’ in stripping individual children of their dignity and presenting them to the Western viewer as helpless objects isolated from any social or historical context, and called for an end to the racist distortion that this perpetuated in people’s conception of the Majority World. Lissner also noted that the use of such pictures was already considered unacceptable when fundraising for children’s charities at home. How could aid agencies get away with such double standards just because their images depicted children from other parts of the world?” (John Hilary, 2014 The unwelcome return of development pornography)

Practical solutions

  • 😏 “Photogenic solutions” (@thejoeturner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • Things that make sense to the donor but might not make sense to the recipient.

Program

Coming soon

Progressive

Coming soon

Project

Coming soon

Project aid

“help that is provided by the donor for a concrete project. It can take the form of construction materials that are to be used to build a new school or hospital.” (Daniil Filipenco, 2024: What is international aid?)

Pro-poor

😏 “The rich know best” (@james_tooley 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Q

No entries yet. Know of a term that belongs here? Let us know!

R

Racial Equity

“Racial equity is both an outcome and a process. As an outcome, we achieve racial equity when race no longer determines people’s socioeconomic outcomes – when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter where they live. As a process, we apply racial equity when those most affected by structural racial inequity are meaningfully involved in the creation and implementation of the institutional policies and practices that bear on their lives. When we achieve racial equity:

  • people, including people of color, are owners, planners and decision-makers in the systems that govern their lives;
  • we acknowledge and account for past and current inequities and provide all people, particularly those most affected by racial inequities, the infrastructure they need to thrive; and everyone benefits from a more just, equitable system. (Race Forward, “What is Racial Equity?”)

Raise awareness

😏 “No measurable outcome” (@jonathan_welle 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Randomistas

  • Avid proponents of randomized control trials to determine effective development methods. They “have depicted RCTs as the key to conclusive knowledge about ‘what works’ in development through their engagements with multiple publics, including academics, aid workers, policymakers and …the ‘donating public’.” (Donovan 2018: The rise of the randomistas: on the experimental turn in international aid).
  • Randomistas know the alternative to using rigorous evidence is the HIPPO (the highest paid person’s opinion). In Africa, the hippo is the most dangerous large animal on the continent; HiPPOs can be just as deadly. Randomised trials can save lives, whereas privileging hunches over facts can be lethal. (Andrew Leigh, Randomistas)

Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

  • 😏 “Research method yielding same results as qualitative work at 10 times the cost” (@texasinafrica 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • But RCTs give EAWs (expat aid workers) the ability to account for and control every variable, as well as measure the efficacy of every process and the reality of every outcome. EAWs will never again have to pfaff around with a “qualitative” survey about whether or not fuel-efficient stoves will save the third world from poverty: They’ll just RCT it and find out for sure. Does training actually work as a way to build local capacity? Who the hell even knows? Oh, wait… do an RCT and become an empowered knower. Does anyone besides journalists think early marriage prevention reduces the spread of HIV? No need to get all flustered. Just do an RCT and prove that it does (or doesn’t). Whatever the situation, better do an RCT. (Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like, 2011: RCTs)
  • See also randomistas and systemistas

Rehabilitation

Coming soon

Remittances

  • Money sent internationally from one party to another
  • Giant cash flows to countries that big donors generally ignore because they don’t get to take credit. For example, remittance flows to Africa have doubled in the past decade, reaching $100 billion since 2022. Remittances in recent years, which are probably undercounted, have matched or exceeded foreign aid (Remittances as development finance: Africa’s overlooked billions, 2025)
  • “People who move to a different country to find work often send money back to their families and community. The movement of funds from the country of work back to a home country is known as remittances. In 2023, remittances back to home countries totalled about $656 billion, equivalent to the GDP of Belgium. In more than 60 countries, remittances account for 3 percent or more of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and small/fragile states are more heavily dependent on remittances.(Remittances, World Bank, 2024)

Rent-seeking behavior

😏 “Everything not nailed to the floor will be stolen”(@charcoalproject 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Resilience

“A celebrated trait of the poor who refuse to die despite the chaos dumped on them by the rich. Resilience-building means teaching communities to survive climate disasters they didn’t cause and economic shocks they don’t control, while the real message is: “Adapt to injustice, don’t challenge it.” The wealthy, meanwhile, don’t need to be resilient because they get bailouts and insurance. Why bother with resilience when you can afford protection?” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

Results based finance

Coming soon

Restricted funding

imagine if your parents gave you an allowance, and then specified what percentage you could spend on candy.

Risk / risk management

😏 “The process of eliminating all interesting or effective ideas to protect the donor from the faintest whiff of discomfort or disrepute. It has evolved from sensible precaution into organisational paralysis, where good ideas are strangled in committee and transformation is vetoed by compliance. Risks to local partners’ autonomy, dignity, or agency are a footnote; risks to the donor’s or INGO’s brand are a five-alarm fire. The purpose isn’t managing risk but managing the anxiety of those entrusted with the brand and the continuing flow of money.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

S

Sanitation

Coming soon

Sensitize

😏 “Tell people what to do” (@zw1tscher 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Scale-up

😏 “It’s time for follow on grant” (@HunterHustus 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Scramble for Africa

Scramble for Africa involved European nations taking over control of the majority of the African continent, stripping the land and people of raw resources like rubber, copper, gold, and more. Corporations, even centuries ago, played a central role in this colonial expansion. These corporations were sent with the blessing of their respective governments to create wealth in Africa no matter the damage dealt to the local people. (The Urge to Help, Zipline and its implication on data colonialism)

Sector

Coming soon

Shallow well

Coming soon

Shit flow diagram

Coming soon

Short-termism

  • A donor or INGO mindset that either thinks deep rooted problems can be solved with a time-limited project
  • A short attention span for humanitarian issues: “Refugee youth articulate their dreams for the future, only for those hopes to be sidelined by donor-driven short-termism.” (Jasmin Lilian Diab, 2025: Humanitarians have a responsibility to listen)

Sidekick

Silos

Nonprofits do what donors pay for rather than address people’s intersecting needs

Silver Bullet

“(or magic bullet) refers to a ‘magical solution to any vexing problem.’ Its origins lie in European folklore featuring werewolves, mythical creatures believed to be impervious to all weapons except the magical silver bullet…. often used by sceptics to dismiss the (explicit or implicit) claims made for the efficacy of a particular technology as having misunderstood or ignored the complexity of the problem it is supposed to solve.” Silver Bullets, Grand Challenges and the New Philanthropy

Systemistas

  • Proponents of systems thinking who critique Randomistas, contending that Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) can provide limited insights and may not adequately address the underlying factors affecting economic growth and human well-being.
  • See Randomized Control Trials

Social enterprise

Social entrepreneurs

  • Coming soon
  • see also heropreneur

Social impact

  • “A significant, positive change that addresses a pressing social challenge.” (Michigan Ross School of Business, 2014 What Is Social Impact?)
  • “Social impact can be defined as the net effect of an activity on a community and the well-being of individuals and families.”(Centre for Social Impact (CSI))

Social justice

Coming soon

Social license to operate

  • A company’s plea “Please don’t protest us!”
  • “Refers to the ongoing acceptance of a company or industry’s standard business practices and operating procedures by its employees, stakeholders, and the general public. The concept of social license is closely related to the concept of sustainability and the triple bottom line.” (Investopedia, 2024. Social License to Operate (SLO): Definition and Standards)

Social problems

Coming soon

Solidarity

Coming soon

South Washing

Aidspeak while there has been the attempt by some organisations to become more representative in the Global South, in reality very few INGOs have truly shifted their headquarters to the Global South. That is, “you claim to be a global actor, and you claim to be shifting the power, but everything about your global governance, your global leadership, your global funding streams, all pivot towards the North”. (Oliver Hudson; Mwikali Muthiani (MillennialHR) Understanding the Pathology of Large NGOs)

Storytelling

‘Decolonial storytelling is an evolving term in development, often seen as the more radical counterpart to ethical and authentic storytelling. It does explicitly challenge power dynamics, not only by questioning which stories are told, but also examining who tells them, and how power and relationships shape narratives.”(Pledge for Change, Pledge for Change Storytelling Panel Working definitions)

Sub saharan africa⚠ Problematic term

  • 😠 it makes no geographic sense, contributes to reinforcing stereotypes, and plays a role in perpetuating post-colonialist patterns of oppression in global development (Banda & Kimambo, 2023: Opinion: Why we’ve stopped using the term ‘sub-Saharan Africa’)
  • Use instead– If we are talking about a group of neighboring countries, we can take the lead from the African Union, which refers to geographic regions of the African continent (eastern Africa, southern Africa, etc.). And if we are referring to a particular community or country, we can specifically name that community or country. (Banda & Kimambo, 2023: Opinion: Why we’ve stopped using the term ‘sub-Saharan Africa’)

Subsidy

in the context of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), subsidy refers to financial assistance that is typically not provided for toilet installations, as CLTS aims to encourage communities to take ownership of their sanitation practices without creating dependency on external funding. (Sanitation Learning Hub, The Community-Led Total Sanitation Approach. Accessed 11-12-2025)

Sustainable/sustainability

  • 😏 “Will last at least as long as the funding” (@thejoeturner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)
  • 😏 “The beautiful imaginary afterlife of a project. A hope-shaped word inserted into proposals to reassure donors that their temporary, externally-funded, expert-heavy intervention will magically become permanent the second they leave. Sustainability assumes that communities will prioritise your intervention after you leave. It requires you to forget that they were there long before you intervened and will still be there long after you leave.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

😏 SWEDOW (stuff we don’t want)

  • The practice of Western countries donating unwanted goods to less privileged countries, including many in Africa. It can negatively impact local communities by promoting dependency and harming local industries. Similarly, it can distort local markets and stunt economic growth.
  • refers to poorly reasoned development planning (often) external contributions to the African continent) that has little/no/harmful impact in reality (Brainscape Flashcards, Stuff We Don’t Want)

Systems Change

😏 “The development sector’s midlife crisis. After decades of failed projects, everyone suddenly realises they should have been changing systems all along, but your funding, mandate, and risk appetite remain stubbornly project-sized. So, you rebrand your failing workshop series by adding the word “ecosystem” and drawing a more complex diagram. It involves endless stakeholder mapping by people who’ve never wielded actual systemic power, while the system itself continues “systeming,” utterly unmoved.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

T

Tackling root causes of poverty

😏 “Repackaging what we’ve already done in a slightly more sexy font” (@thejoeturner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

Theory of Change (ToC) (n.)

😏 “A bedtime story for anxious donors (one page only, please). A ToC is a beautifully diagrammed and illustrated guess about the future, mistaken for a roadmap. The development sector’s horoscope: vague enough that nobody can prove you’re wrong, specific enough to look like you did research, and flexible enough to say “see, I told you so” no matter what happens. Theories of change assume linear pathways in chaotic contexts, predictable human behaviour in unpredictable situations, and that your intervention is the main character in everyone else’s story. A logframe’s philosophical cousin, equally confident about predicting the future, equally wrong in retrospect. The theory is that change follows logic; the reality is that logic follows funding requirements. Much the same as drawing a treasure map when you don’t know where the treasure is, aren’t sure it exists, and have a rowing boat when a ship is required.” (Alice in Developmentland, 2025. Dispatch 6: A Novice’s Guide to DevelopmentSpeak)

😣 Third World⚠ Problematic term

“By the Cold War, a very distinct world order had emerged – the first world (Western democratic countries that had already developed), the second world (the Soviet Union and its satellite states), and the third world (former colonies in the developing stage that were still fairly dependent on foreign aid).” (Elizabeth Bersin, 2015: Examining Aid Accountability In International Development)

Tied Aid

“This type of international aid is to be spent by the beneficiary in the nation offering assistance (the donor) or a group of specific nations. When the donor offers a bilateral loan or grant, it expects that the receiving nation will spend the money on products and services offered by the donor country. For instance, all food aid, as well as all vehicles needed to administer help, must be imported from the country giving the aid.” (Daniil Filipenco, 2024: What is international aid?)

Training⚠ Problematic term

“Why we hate it. Trainings seems to suggest a one way flow of ideas and information. Party A trains Party B. If they’re lucky, Party A might learn something new, such as how to say: “Where is the bathroom?” in another language. But in reality, trainings don’t occur this way (or at least they shouldn’t). One of the most satisfying things about continually doing these activities is that you learn something new every time you do them. Point in case: One of us (Weh) conducted two similar “trainings” on barriers that people with disabilities commonly face – one in China, another in Cambodia. Whereas the Chinese participants tended to identify physical barriers such as lack of ramps and rails as most disabling, people in Cambodia identified discrimination as the major barrier that people with disabilities faced there. A wonderful opportunity for the “trainer” to learn from the “trainee”.” (WhyDev 2012: Guest Roast: 9 Development Phrases We Hate and Suggestions for a New Lexicon)

See “capacity building”

Trust based philanthropy

When the people with the money who don’t know how to do something give it to people who do know how to do something and let them do it the way they need to do it.

U

Ubuntu

  • a philosophy that supports collectivism over individualism; encompasses the interdependence of humans on one another and the acknowledgment of one’s responsibility to their fellow humans and the world around them.
  • A collection of values and practices that people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. While the nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups, they all point to one thing – an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental and spiritual world (Mugumbate, Jacob Rugare; Chereni, Admire (23 April 2020). “Editorial: Now, the theory of Ubuntu has its space in social work“. African Journal of Social Work. 10 (1). ISSN 2409-5605.

United Nations (UN)

The United Nations (UN), formed after the end of World War Two to maintain international peace, is made up of representatives of almost every country. It has numerous speciality agencies, listed here.

United Nations Goals

😏 “making up targets for problems we don’t understand. paid for with money we don’t have” (@jacobhorner 2011. AidSpeak Dictionary)

V

Value for Money

In international aid, value for money, refers to maximizing the impact of each unit of currency spent to improve the lives of those in need. It emerged in 2010, championed by the Department for International Development (DFID) as a mechanism to increase transparency around aid spending and promote stronger accountability to the tax paying public.(Francesca D’Emidio, IDS, 2018: Time to do value for money in international development differently?)

😣 Victim⚠ Problematic term

  • Individual/entity harmed as a result of the problem (An unacceptable situation or issue that requires action) (Understanding the role of narratives in humanitarian policy change 2023).
  • “As long as you use vocabulary like “victims,” you’re going to treat the public like a liability and you have to take care of them.” (We Are All First Responders, 2015)

Visionary

Coming soon

Voluntourism

“people travel to a resource-constrained region to do work that they aren’t necessarily qualified to do…Rather than flying somewhere to dig a trench, or paint a wall, why not give that money to the community directly and pay them to dig and paint? So much more could be done that way. But the voluntourists…don’t want to just be a donor, they want to be integral to the solution, and that is selfish. Both can be achieved IF the volunteer is contributing in a way that others cannot. An accountant volunteering to help a small business develop better financial systems is good. An accountant digging a trench is bad.” (Cristian Birzer, 2018: Service Learning or Voluntourism?)

  • See also Seven sins of humanitarian medicine
  • (Antonym: Hoping to Help’s nine practices that would be most likely to have an impact in creating effective health-related volunteer programs: Foster mutuality between sponsor organizations and host-country partners at every stage. Maintain continuity of programming. Conduct substantive needs assessment, with host-community involvement. Evaluate process and outcomes and incorporate the results into improvements. Focus on prevention. Integrate diverse types of health services. Build local capacity. Strengthen volunteer preparation. Have volunteers stay longer.)

Voucher

A type of aid that allows recipients to exchange it for specific goods or services, rather than receiving direct cash or in-kind assistance. This method provides some flexibility and choice while ensuring that aid meets their specific needs.

W

WASH

  • Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)
  • The technical terms for this have evolved over the years, including water supply, water and sanitation (watsan), water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and most recently, before USAID’s demise water security, sanitation, and hygiene (WSSH)

Water project

Coming soon

Well

  • A hole dug in the ground to reach water
  • An ancient way of getting water still used today. Users collect water by lowering a bucket using a rope (possibly on a pulley). Rocks or bricks placed within the well’s opening keep it from caving in. Modern well construction uses concrete rings. (Antony Muya, 2024: The Difference between a Well and a Water Borehole)
  • Water wells divide into two categories: dug wells; and drilled wells, and each category may then be subdivided according to whether the well is constructed by hand or by machine. For definition purposes, a dug well is a well that a person can enter to clean or deepen and will rarely be less than 800mm in diameter. (Community Water Supply: The Handpump Option, 1987)

White Savior⚠ Problematic term

  • “Western people going in to “fix” the problems of struggling nations or people of color without understanding their history, needs, or the region’s current state of affairs.” (Urban Dictionary, accessed 12-15-2025)
  • A “white savior” refers to a white person who is depicted or perceived as rescuing or helping non-white people in a way that is often seen as self-serving, patronizing, or reinforcing stereotypes of racial superiority. This concept is frequently criticized for perpetuating a narrative where people of color are depicted as helpless or inferior, requiring white intervention to achieve progress or success.” (Urban Dictionary, accessed 12-15-2025)
  • “a nobody can come from Europe/America, go to Africa and be a godlike saviour or have their emotional needs covered. Also linked to “White Man’s Burden””(Brainscape Flashcards, Stuff We Don’t Want)

White Savior Industrial Complex

  • A symptom of racism and white suprem*cy which places those in a position of privilege into the role of savior over those who have been historically oppressed and exploited.(Duncan Green, 2023: White Saviorism in International Development)
  • The development aid industry has its foundations in the need to “help the poor” of the “developing” world,. . .And it is only the great white saviors of the North who can do so. (Duncan Green, 2023: White Saviorism in International Development)

Without Borders

‘Practitioners in [Doctors Without Borders] and [Lawyers Without Borders] ignore arbitrary political borders defining countries, traveling to war-torn regions, refugee camps and impoverished areas to minister to the sick, injured, or infirm, or to press for the fair legal treatment of prisoners, dissidents, and those seeking asylum. For these organizations, the meaning of “without borders” literally means no physical, political national boundaries confining where they will go to serve the rights of people to health care or legal defense. (Glasberg, Davita S.. 2012. “Sociologists Without Borders and The Meaning of “Without Borders”: The Social Construction of Organizational and Scholarly Boundaries.”)

Work force / labor force

“Talking about the ‘labour force’, particularly with regards to ‘getting women into the labour force’, implies that paid work is the only work with value. Care work is generally unpaid but adds huge value to society and the economy. It is better to differentiate between paid work and unpaid work. Care workers are still part of the labour force. However, it is also important to recognize that there is an implied assumption that the paid labour force refers to the formal sector, ignoring the informal sector where the majority of workers are women.” (Oxfam, 2023: Inclusive Language Guide) Furthermore, the unpaid yet critical work of fetching water and cooking are typically done by women.

See labor force

X

No entries yet. Know of a term that belongs here? Let us know!

Y

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Z

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This glossary is a living document. Have a term to add or a correction to suggest? Contact us!