“Global South mobilization is predicated on the acceptance of our growing agency and the desire to work together as equals” with the Global North, Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim noted in a key speech during his visit to India in August. Anwar’s attempt to stress the need for a bridge between the Global South and Global North is an important reframing relative to caricatures by some detractors that an empowered Global South and the positions taken by countries in key subregions necessarily undermines Global North objectives at a time of intensified strategic competition.
Indeed, in that same spirit, conversations with policymakers over the past year across five key regions of the Global South – Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and Latin America – reveal much more interest in bridging North-South gaps in order to increase geopolitical space for the Global South at a time of growing major power divisions.
While the term Global South may not be universally accepted, it has been gaining traction as a shorthand to describe a diverse grouping of over 130 primarily postcolonial developing countries, largely in the Southern hemisphere, which together comprise around 40 percent of global GDP and 80 percent of the world’s population. Terminology aside, as one Global South official succinctly put it, it reflects common but differentiated “vectors of discontent” often heard among some developing countries about the need for a more just and equitable order reflecting the rise of the rest relative to past Western domination.
Content analysis of speeches by officials across Global South countries over the past few years indicates that these vectors exist in five key areas: a greater voice in a more multipolar order amid the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza; an increased role within international institutions like the United Nations that do not reflect current power distribution; a greater prioritization of growth imperatives relative to geopolitical considerations after a challenging pandemic; a greater focus on sovereignty and agency amid intensified major power competition; and an increased recognition of historical inequalities with significance in areas like climate. Officials like India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar have also publicly noted that the Global South captures a mindset rooted in specific non-Western concerns rather than explicitly anti-Western sentiments.
Bridging Global North-Global South gaps is an urgent imperative for Global South countries, even if inroads like the U.N. Pact for the Future also point to the work that remains to be done. To paraphrase Kenya’s President William Ruto’s quote, sometimes attributed to Ghana’s independent leader Kwame Nkrumah, while there may be growing pressures to choose sides amid major power divides, the key question for Global South countries is how they can “face forward” to address tangible challenges following multiple wars and a global pandemic rather than facing East or facing West.
That “face forward” frame is critical amid future geopolitical and geoeconomic trajectories. For instance, despite the proliferation of new climate institutions such as Just Energy Transition Partnerships, a central concern is that mounting debt will constrain fiscal space for countries to invest in development, with a majority of low-income countries already spending more on debt servicing than health and education combined and the world trillions of dollars short of key development targets. Amid the game-changing potential of artificial intelligence (AI), conversations are taking place at a time when Group of Seven countries are party to all seven of the most prominent AI frameworks while 118 primarily Global South countries are parties to none.
The urgent need to address these gaps is occurring at a challenging time, given the dynamics of intensifying strategic competition, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. These dynamics are well recognized by Global South policymakers, even if there is wariness that an overly narrow lens of strategic competition may override development priorities and repeat past cycles of colonial oppression. Geopolitically, incremental steps toward institutional expansion, such as the addition of the African Union to the Group of Twenty during India’s chairmanship, have been overshadowed by scrutiny among some Western countries about Russia’s efforts to break out of its Ukraine war isolation through initiatives linked to the BRICS and SCO.
Geoeconomically, U.S.-China tensions are spilling over into key sectors and exacerbating fragmentation fears that will disproportionately impact developing countries. Recent scrutiny has been placed on China’s role in Indonesia’s critical minerals sector, Beijing’s attempted gains on undersea cables in the Pacific Islands, and the movement of Chinese firms into Global South supply chains in response to the so-called “small yard, high fence” restrictions. By one count, China’s inroads could eclipse Washington’s half-century-old position as the most powerful and influential country in the Global South by 2040.
Bridging North-South gaps in an environment of intensified strategic competition requires a shared effort. Beyond avoiding an aggregate U.S.-China choice, Global South countries should strengthen their agency to secure interests in key “swing sectors” like emerging technologies, including scrutinizing capital flows in key national security areas even if this falls short of explicit investment screening. Encouraging South-South linkages will also be critical to finding alignment within a diverse Global South that will understandably continue to lack a single spokesperson.
Global North countries also have a critical role to play. Beyond scrutinizing BRICS expansion, the focus should be on pushing more Global South integration into institutions like the OECD and socializing minilaterals like the Quad or Minerals Security Partnership via tailored, tangible benefits. Forward-leaning U.S. officials understand the need to engage in Global South-related conversations beyond debates about the term’s usage, even though Washington lacks engagement channels set up by allies like Japan.
Middle powers will play a key role in individual subregions. One case in point is Australia’s planned co-hosting of COP31 with Pacific Island countries. Another is Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2025, with Anwar and his team viewing the year as an opportunity to shore up the regional grouping before the chairmanship passes to a succession of other key regional states including the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
To be sure, bridging gaps between the Global South and the Global North will not be without its share of challenges. Countries will be navigating competing strategic imperatives with limited policymaking bandwidth, strained budgets, and shifting domestic, regional and global realities. Some of the challenges confronting countries, including digital disinformation or internal capture, are only beginning to spill over into the public domain. Yet Global South empowerment is critical not just in addressing the injustices of history or the strains of the present, but in fashioning an inclusive vision for the future. As U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently put it, “we can’t build a future for our grandchildren with a system for our grandparents.”