Explained: ‘Global South’ That India Looks To Be The Voice Of As G20 President

New Delhi: Later this week, India will be holding for the first time a summit meeting of all those countries that constitute the ‘Global South’ in an effort to give “voice to the unheard”, and thereby leverage India’s role as the current G20 president. However, little is known about the concept of ‘Global South’, a terminology that was referred to loosely back in the 1960s, essentially denoting low-income countries.

Last week, India announced that it will host a virtual summit of these countries, calling it ‘Voice of Global South Summit’ under the theme — Unity of Voice, Unity of Purpose. More than 120 countries are being invited to participate in this summit.

The initiative is inspired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas, and is underpinned by India’s philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, according to a press note by the Ministry of External Affairs.

“The Voice of Global South Summit is India's endeavour to provide a common platform to deliberate on these concerns, interests and priorities that affect the developing countries also to exchange ideas and solutions, and most importantly, to unite in voice and purpose in addressing these elements of our concerns and priorities,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said last week, announcing the initiative.

He added: “India will work to ensure that the valuable inputs generated from partner countries in the Voice of Global South Summit deliberations receive due cognizance globally. India's ongoing presidency of the G20 provides us with a special and strong opportunity to channel these inputs into the deliberation and discourse of the G20.”

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What Is ‘Global South’ And Why It Is Important

The term ‘Global South’ began by loosely referring to those countries that were left out of the industrialisation era and had a conflict of ideology with the capitalist and communist countries, accentuated by the Cold War. It includes countries that are in Asia, Africa and South America. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has compelled the developing and lower-income countries, which define the ‘Global South’, to take a firm stand and not be dragged into either of the camps.

‘Global South’ is just the opposite of ‘Global North’, defined essentially by an economic division between the rich and poorer countries that also gave rise to South-South cooperation, a collaboration of developing and least-developed countries — as defined by the United Nations on a bilateral, regional, intraregional or interregional basis in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains.

According to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, the ‘Global South’ today is facing critical issues like an unabated rise in the prices of oil, food and fertilisers, coupled with mounting debt and rapidly deteriorating economic growth.

Last November, during his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, Jaishankar said: “The Global South feels the pain (of rising prices).” Giving reasons as to why India needs to procure oil from Russia, he said: “India is the third-largest consumer of oil and gas, where incomes are not very high. We need to look for affordable sources, so the India-Russia relationship works to our advantage. We will keep it going.”

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A research report by the LSE stated: “The ‘Global South’ has stood for cross-regional and multilateral alliances with references to the 1955 Bandung Conference, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 at the United Nations. This is a tricontinental space with platforms and cooperation practices beyond those dominated by former colonial powers.”

It also noted that the Global South does not refer just to the hemispheric south. "It has been a general rubric for decolonised nations located roughly south of the old colonial centres of power,” the report said. 

“The idea of a powerful Global North and a resistant Global South was promoted by the Zapatista revolt in Mexico, the African Renaissance, and the World Social Forum launched in Brazil. Industrial growth in Asia, and the emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) group in world politics, complicated the North-South picture. But other changes in the global economy, especially the huge growth of finance capital centred in New York, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo, reinforced the economic advantage of the old imperial centres,” according to a Sage Journal report.

The report also highlighted, however, that in the present times, “The use of the phrase Global South marks a shift from a focus on development or cultural difference toward an emphasis on geopolitical power relations.”