Global North actors often research and shape the information ecosystems of the Majority World¹—for example, by studying influence operations that target Majority World countries, by setting terms of service on multinational tech platforms, or by funding projects to combat disinformation around the world. However, such efforts can easily fail or backfire because of Global North actors’ poor understanding of local conditions and context. Global North governments, companies, and civil society organizations have long recognized that Majority World voices need to be involved in issues that concern their countries, yet existing approaches to research and policymaking continue to fall short in addressing Majority World concerns.² Among other reasons, it takes time, resources, and intentional relationship-building for Global North actors to obtain meaningful, granular local insights about a wide range of Majority World countries.

This article draws on structured interviews to identify Majority World experts’ top recurring critiques of—and recommendations for—Global North work on the information environment. Carnegie interviewed fifty-four experts on the information environment who have long-term, on-the-ground experience in twenty-nine countries across Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.³ Despite interviewees’ diverse backgrounds, they converged on several common ideas for how Global North actors can better tailor their research and policymaking to conditions in Majority World countries. This article highlights five themes, each illustrated with specific examples and paired with concrete recommendations:

1. Global North actors often select interventions based on efficacy research from Global North contexts, which may not translate to other countries. Rather than chasing a false notion of universal efficacy, policymakers should focus on tailoring interventions to local communication norms and community dynamics.
2. Global North researchers often neglect to review important local sources of information that are not common in their own countries, such as loudspeakers and telenovelas. Researchers need to expand their knowledge of news and non-news outlets frequently used in the Majority World.
3. The existence of a narrative within a country—for example, the official dogma propagated by state media—is often incorrectly taken to mean that the narrative is widely believed. Researchers need to develop locally relevant impact measurements to better assess whether an intervention is needed.
4. Global guidelines on the information environment are often inapplicable in non-democratic contexts—for example, some countries have encouraged forms of social media regulation that might be abused by authoritarian states. At times, these guidelines do not align with the conduct of the democracies that are their strongest advocates. Guidelines should have clearer scopes, and Global North democracies should be held accountable to these guidelines by critics.
5. Researcher tools published by the Global North, such as those created for bot detection, often do not work in other contexts and languages. Tooling could be made more configurable to local contexts or developed locally.

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