Do "developing countries" and "underdeveloped countries" have derogatory connotations?

Is there any derogatory or negative connotation with the words "developing countries" and "underdeveloped countries"? Should I avoid using them?

I read somewhere, don't remember where, that they have a colonialist connotation which might be disrespectful. Is that so? If so, what are some better word choices?

Solution 1:

One common phenomenon for pejorative terms is what Steven Pinker called the euphemism treadmill. It's normal enough for terms which were once chosen to be neutral/non-pejorative to become pejorative with time. With fraught subjects, like the differences between places and cultures, this can happen a lot.

Developing and least developed to describe countries which have fewer/weaker human development indicators (the latter term more severe) remain in heavy use. Some people don't like them. I would not hesitate to use developing countries, but I would avoid anything like underdeveloped (which could make the countries sound deficient and implies a value judgement) or undeveloped (which makes the distinction binary).

A recently-growing term which is vague but avoids an appearance of hierarchy, monotonically, and value judgement is the global south. Sometimes, it might pay to be specific: poor countries, countries with child mortality rates above 1%, etc.

Not recommended is shithole countries.

Solution 2:

When I was a lad at school back in the 50s, I remember “backward” countries becoming “underdeveloped” for fear of giving offence, but later “underdeveloped” was presumably perceived as giving offence, so they became “developing”.

The fact that the poster questions whether “developing” may be offensive shows that in this sort of thing you cannot win. You have two options: you can either crawl to try to placate the victim complex of the nationals of the country, or call a spade a spade. I have voted to close this question as subjective, but my subjective response is that if I lived in a backward country, as an intelligent individual, I would be insulted if someone patronized me by calling it anything else.