Reenergizing efforts toward more ethical storytelling

COVID-19 and racial equity conversations led by Black Lives Matter and other movements have shone a light on inequality, raising awareness about the need for change and instilling energy in those committed to delivering it. 

For the aid and development sector, this represents an opportunity — both to reflect on how its own narratives have contributed to power imbalances in the past, and to spearhead a more ethical style of storytelling. 

Many NGOs and donors are already embarking on that journey, hoping that making space for communities to tell their own stories will result in better program design, more direct funding to community-based organizations, and greater impact.

“Historically, the aid and development sector has gone for a very simplistic view of the communities that we work with, and that has seeped into the images that are used across campaigning and fundraising, but also across communications and into the narrative that we use,” explained Lena Bheeroo, a committee member of the CharitySoWhite campaign group and a working group member of The Racial Equity Index.

“Rather than having individual stories being told and actually authentic storytelling that truly reflects the reality of communities that we work with, we’ve gone for bigger, broad brushstrokes,” she said, adding that these lack nuance and fail to explore the lives that communities are leading and why.

Reliance on negative stereotypes and shock tactics in development stories — often told from a “white gaze” perspective — has resulted in inaccurate, uncontextualized narratives. The footage of starving children used to fundraise for the 1984 Live Aid campaign is a regularly cited example.

Storytelling’s powerful ability to influence funding decisions has had unintended consequences historically, leading to a prioritization of audience response over the accuracy, context, and dignity of people directly impacted by the aid programs.

“There has been a primary focus on what others want to hear,” observed Ronald Kibirige, co-founder at InteRoots, a nonprofit that facilitates community-driven projects. “Organizations craft their narratives in order to reach the donors.”

^{A COVID-19 testing center in Madagascar. Photo: World Bank / Henitsoa Rafalia}

As part of broader efforts to shift power, organizations are also working to move away from “patronizing language around foreign aid and charity to empowering language around multilateralism, communal endeavour, [and] common good,” Ofield-Kerr said.

Narratives should however acknowledge the legacy of colonialism and its contribution to the challenges many communities face, Bheeroo emphasized. 

Rooms where decisions are made and narratives are shaped must contain senior leaders whose lived experience at least partly reflects that of the people whose stories are told, said Sandine, adding that PATH is currently striving to diversify its board to be more representative of the places where it works. But this must be framed within a deeper cultural transformation guided by values, she added. “Ethical and appropriate storytelling is a reflection of an ethical and appropriate organization.”

Organizations are also reassessing their narrative targets, acknowledging that giving does not only travel north to south and is not limited to financial flows. 

Communities are sometimes their own best audience, Kibirige said. The process of articulating their needs, challenges, ideas, and successes in storytelling can act as a catalyst for communities to identify local resources and generate their own solutions, which higher-income countries could learn from, he explained. The crafting of narratives is “not only about the donors — it’s also about what the community can offer.”

The Global Public Investment concept states that concessional public finance needs to evolve from an unequal donor-recipient model to one where countries collaborate, sharing resources, expertise, and influence to solve common problems. In keeping with its “All benefit, all contribute, and all decide” principles, more storytelling should be directed at audiences in the developing south, Ofield-Kerr argued.

Ensuring positive change is permanent change

The sector’s rush to improve its storytelling is very of the moment, Sandine said, adding that in medical journals, too, the topic of racism had barely been acknowledged until a surge of interest in 2021. However, momentum will only be maintained if development organizations continue to support the work with deeper institutional reform, she said.

Kibirige agrees with this. The sector must guard against simply changing its storytelling tools while letting the old narrative creep back in. Permanent change will require structural transformation that extends beyond communications into a reimagining of aid, he concluded.

^{Young participants in San Vicente de Caguán speak to a local radio program about how children and youth are appropriating historical memory of their community through arts and communications. Photo: Katherine Ko / ACDI/VOCA / USAID / CC BY-NC}