September 9, 2023, 1:40 a.m. ET
September 9, 2023, 1:40 a.m. ETA African Union July meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo credit: Daniel Irungu/EPA, via Shutterstock
They used to be called “Third World nations” and then “developing countries” – a term that is still used but pales in comparison to a newer buzzword: the Global South.
Like “the West,” it is an inaccurate nickname. Many countries in the Global South are not in the southern hemisphere at all. India is one thing, Mexico is another.
But when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday that the G20 had invited the African Union to become a member of the G20 – making it the second regional bloc to be admitted after the European Union – the Global South appears to be on the rise to be. His frustrations and ideas about shortcomings in major power policies are already changing the global debate, although they are still converging.
“These countries are not thinking about ‘Southern solidarity’ – they are just pursuing their interests,” said Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank. “And when they do that, it adds up to more than the sum of its parts.”
What unites the Global South – a term coined in 1969 by an American activist writing about the Vietnam War and now used to describe a diverse group of more than 100 countries from Saudi Arabia to Guatemala – is the feeling that his own priorities were pushed into the background of global discussions.
At a time when India has the world’s fifth-largest economy, and when Vietnam and Senegal are outperforming much of Europe, many countries in the Global South are asking with a louder voice: where are our interests represented?
Given that a multipolar world was already emerging, they rejected a return to the Cold War model of choosing sides between capitalists (US) and communists (China). They have also ignored and protested against U.S.-imposed sanctions on Russia over its aggression in Ukraine, instead focusing attention on rising food prices and long-term problems like climate change that wealthier countries are doing more to create and less to alleviate .
In January, India hosted a virtual Voice of Global South summit at the start of its G20 presidency. Last month, some of these countries met in South Africa for the BRICS summit, where China and India presented themselves as leaders of the Global South while the United States was largely absent.
Professor Shidore said these types of alternative gatherings are likely to increase, both challenging Western leadership and adding new policies to the global mix.
“These forums are important,” he said. “They create tools for like-minded countries to put forward different ideas.”
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