Why we've stopped using the term 'sub-Saharan Africa'

As African development workers based in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, we’ve been using the expression “sub-Saharan Africa” ourselves for years. Yet it makes no geographic sense, contributes to reinforcing stereotypes, and plays a role in perpetuating post-colonialist patterns of oppression in global development — so we’ve stopped using it.

As part of a multidonor fund working in eastern and southern Africa, we are used to the language that goes with the job. Over the last couple of years however, the focus of the organization we work at, Firelight, has been on consciously trying to shift power from the global north to communities in Africa, and it’s a process that has made us sit down and reflect on how we were actually doing this — and how we talk about what we are doing.

During one of these reflection sessions, a colleague mentioned an article about the negative associations of the term “sub-Saharan Africa” and it got us thinking and inspired us to do our own research. Here’s what we found.

First, “sub-Saharan Africa” does not make sense from a geographic lens. International organizations, ranging from the United Nations to the World Bank, include different sets of countries within the designation sub-Saharan Africa, many of which are actually on the Sahara Desert. Rosalind Morris, a professor of African Studies, hits the nail on the head when she calls it “such an enormous catchphrase that it’s almost useless.”

Second, there is the fact that — when you actually think about it — the phrase is simply inappropriate. As Tatenda Mashanda writes: “It divides Africa according to white ideas of race making North Africans white enough to be considered for their glories, but not really white enough. … When one uses the suffix ‘sub’ to refer to ‘below,’ images of Africa as all poor, suffering from AIDS (not to demonize the victims) and in a state of disarray are reinforced.”

Third, concern about the term sub-Saharan Africa and its associations is nothing new and African researchers, academics, and thinkers have long recognized that this term is rife with colonial legacies of references to “Black Africa” or “tropical Africa” without the explicitly racist terminology.

In fact, concern about the use of sub-Saharan Africa goes back at least 60 years to 1963, when Pan-African thinker and inaugural president of newly independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, wrote in his book “Africa Must Unite”: “There is a tendency to divide Africa into fictitious zones north and south of the Sahara which emphasizes racial, religious, and cultural differences. The basic fallacy of these persuasions, dangerous to the independence of Africa in their shrewd exploitation of our pride and vanities, is the deliberate distortion of our vision of African Union.”

As we say, we have been using the phrase for years and it is engrained within the global development sector. It has likely survived because of that and because people think it is simply referring to geography — but there is more to it than that.

Step back and you will realize that the expression sub-Saharan Africa is subtly aligned to systemic oppression. It looks down on a part of Africa by describing it in a way that other continents are not described.

As an organization, we are continuously learning and have spent a lot of time actually listening to the communities that we fund, working out how we can best support them to change the systems that affect them.

Language like sub-Saharan Africa is not helpful on this journey because it denies us an opportunity to shift the power. Our decision as an organization to no longer use it is part of an ongoing process to ensure we are living our values. It is about having a broader mindset and being conscious of what we say as well as what we do (there are other phrases used throughout the development sector that we are reflecting on too – ‘beneficiary’ is one of them).

So, what should we be saying instead? The answer is quite simple. 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.

Firelight’s work in supporting community-driven systems change in southern and eastern Africa is about breaking new ground and challenging many traditions of the global north.

We know our intention when using the phrase was positive but we also recognize that we are on a learning journey — and that we must adapt the way we act and talk to reflect our learning.

Removing the term from our organizational lexicon is part of this journey. We hope others in the sector will join us and remove the phrase from our collective vocabulary.