I have seen how the demand for storytelling in the development world keeps growing. Stories are now central to fundraising, advocacy, and demonstrating impact. Yet, the bias in these narratives is striking. The focus is overwhelmingly on transformation-the magnificent change that development aid is supposedly making-while the difficult stories of structural injustice, systemic oppression, and historical exploitation remain largely untold. Instead of challenging the very systems that create inequality, many development stories displace these realities, offering instead a carefully curated version of progress that fits donor priorities.

The Market for Stories: Who Pays, Who Profits?

In the development “industry”, stories are not just told-they are bought and sold- constantly on the market. Donors and Global North institutions shape what is considered a “compelling” narrative, often favoring stories of individual resilience over systemic critique. Success is framed in terms of interventions, not resistance. Progress is measured through impact reports, not lived experiences.

Women’s stories, in particular, are often reduced to tropes: the struggling mother whose life is transformed by Microfinance, the girl child rescued from child marriage, the entrepreneur lifting her community out of poverty. These narratives serve a purpose-not necessarily for the women themselves, but for the institutions that use them to secure funding and demonstrate effectiveness. The political and economic conditions that create these struggles in the first place remain unchallenged.

Who profits from these stories? It is rarely the women themselves. Instead, it is international NGOs, donors, and philanthropists who build legitimacy and raise funds based on sanitised, donor-friendly versions of reality. The labor of lived experience is extracted, while the power to define change remains elsewhere.

Gendered Silences: Who Gets to Speak?

The dominant narratives in development are not just about who is seen but also about who is erased. Women in the Global South are not voiceless, but they are often unheard. Their knowledge and leadership are filtered through external frameworks, mediated by development professionals who decide which parts of their stories are “useful” and which are too complex, too political, or too critical of existing power structures.

Even within feminist spaces, certain voices are privileged over others. Elite, Western feminist perspectives often shape what issues are seen as urgent and which strategies are considered effective. The lived experiences of grassroots women-those organising against land grabs, extractivism, or austerity-are often sidelined in favor of more palatable, fundable narratives of individual empowerment.

The White Gaze in Development Storytelling

We must keep naming it-Race is central to the political economy of storytelling. The way stories are told-and to whom they are told-reinforces global hierarchies of knowledge and power. Development narratives are still largely shaped by the white gaze.

Under this gaze, complexity is flattened. Struggles for land rights, labor justice, and climate reparations are reframed as personal success stories rather than collective movements for systemic change. Structural violence is depoliticized, and history is erased to fit narratives of Western benevolence and intervention.

The result? Development becomes a space where Global South communities are subjects of stories, but rarely authors. Their realities are translated, softened, and curated to fit frameworks designed in offices thousands of miles away.

Toward a Feminist Decolonial Storytelling Praxis

If we are serious about decolonising development, we must also decolonise its storytelling. This requires a fundamental shift:

• From extraction to co-creation. Stories should be told with communities, not about them
• From representation to agency. Women in the Global South should not be case studies-they should be narrators, analysts, and decision-makers in their own storytelling.
• From donor-driven narratives to movement-led storytelling. We need to invest in local media, feminist storytelling platforms, and grassroots documentation efforts that are accountable to communities, not funders.
• From visibility to justice. Storytelling should not just make injustice visible-it should be a tool for organising, mobilising, and reclaiming power.

The political economy of storytelling is not just about words-it is about power, resources, and control. In a truly decolonised development space, storytelling becomes a practice of solidarity, not “saviorism”. It is not a spotlight cast from elsewhere, but a mirror held up by communities themselves-And that is the kind of storytelling we must fight for.