You could speak three languages and still not count as ‘bilingual’ to many development sector recruiters – and that needs to change, says Oxfam in Africa’s Abbas Kigozi.
In international development today, language carries its own form of privilege when it comes to getting jobs and promotions. In fact, proficiency in colonial languages is frequently prioritised above all else, including the local expertise that is essential to the sector’s supposed aims of localisation and decolonisation. If we are serious about these aims, I would argue that needs to change.
Colonialism and its language legacy
For decades, colonial powers imposed their languages and education systems on local populations across Africa. Everyone was required to learn the language of the colonisers, which became associated with modernity, sophistication and social status. In nearly all colonies, these languages were used in administration, a legacy that persists as many African countries retain them as official means of communication.
The pressure to learn colonial languages continued after independence. From the late 1950s, and particularly post-independence, Africans pursuing higher education began to seek opportunities across Africa and abroad. Those wanting to go to the Global North often had to undergo rigorous six-to-12-month programmes to master colonial languages before being accepted into courses, a practice that remains in place to this day.
Language skills privileged, while local expertise is devalued
That history has left a legacy where skills in colonial languages and education in the Global North are valued particularly highly by employers in the sector: so highly, in fact, that both of these sometimes trump real local expertise and experience. It seems as if Africans who are products of Western education systems are more readily hired into senior roles within international humanitarian organisations, even when they have less contextual experience than counterparts educated in Africa.
It is not uncommon to see a former intern from the Global North rise to a senior position in an international humanitarian organisation in Africa, something that would rarely happen to an intern educated in Africa. This highlights the ongoing favouritism towards Western credentials and linguistic skills. Could we imagine an African becoming an INGO Country Director without any Western education and with less than two years of experience? Yet people with western education and “international” experience in the Global North seem to get such senior opportunities far more readily. The contrast in opportunities raises important questions about underlying bias in leadership recruitment.
When speaking three languages doesn’t make you “bilingual”
The difference in the status the sector gives to colonial versus local languages in encapsulated in the common demand that staff should be “bilingual”. But that of course only counts if one of those languages is a colonial one.
Many African adults are multilingual, often speaking their mother tongue, another indigenous African language, and/or a widely spoken language. However, this linguistic diversity is frequently overlooked, as colonial and neo-colonial languages are deemed superior.
Such skewed “bilingualism” has increasingly become a requirement for roles within international humanitarian organisations. It’s worth noting that this is particularly evident in the official and working languages of the United Nations, where, aside from Arabic, none of the major native African languages typically meets the criteria for so-called ‘bilingualism’.
In some cases, language has even fuelled tensions between Anglophone and Francophone Africans. Those who are proficient in two colonial languages will often be held in higher regard than counterparts who just speak one colonial language and are fluent in multiple African languages. This dynamic reinforces the perception that mastery of European languages is more valuable than Africa’s rich linguistic diversity.
Language has long been a key tool of control in many imperial contexts, with value, power, and access deeply embedded within it. Decolonising language and challenging the supremacy of colonial languages is critical if we are to empower marginalised groups and dismantle oppressive attitudes and structures in the humanitarian sector. How much local talent is being blocked from entry or advancement in the sector by the insistence on colonial language skills? How much are we being deprived of local expertise and experience as a result?
It’s time to critically examine how language can act as a barrier to the decolonisation of aid: we need to ask who is excluded by the language(s) we choose; what assumptions or worldviews are hidden within our linguistic choices; and how these choices perpetuate the erasure of local people and experiences and perpetuate colonial inequalities.
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