As India assumed the G20 presidency, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the country would emerge as the “voice of the Global South”. Soon after the announcement, the word became viral.
In a polarised world, India thinks that people who suffer most are the Global South. Let us look at the term GlobalSouth.
First, let’s see what Global North is. It refers to countries like the US, Canada, Europe, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. GlobalSouth includes countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
WHAT JAISHANKAR SAID
Addressing the ‘G20 University Connect – Engaging Young Minds’, an event organised to mark the G20 presidency, Jaishankar said that as the mother of democracy, India’s G20 presidency would be consultative, collaborative and decisive. “It is time when we must become the voice of the global south, which is otherwise under-represented in such forums,” he said
Noting that countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America trust India to speak up for them, he said that India of late have been at forefront of expressing their concerns on fuel, food, fertilisers.
The Minister said that sufferings of the global south were because of polarisation. “The polarisation in the world may occur elsewhere, but people in the global south suffer the most. Our intentions would be to get leaders on what a large part of the world thinks,” he said.
Global North and South
Global North and Global South is one of the best groupings now that exactly differentiate between the countries in terms of wealth, indicators of education, healthcare and a lot more. Apart from this, another similarity of the countries in Global South is that most have a history of colonisation, largely at the hands of European powers.
Moreover, the countries in the GlobalSouth have never been in prominent positions in international organisations – such as permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. Moreover, these countries are also not in bodies like the UN and the IMF, who are major decision-making bodies.
And now there is much significance for the GlobalSouth countries as some of the countries such as India and China have shown major economic development. Many see that the world is now Multi-polar rather than being centralised only on the western or the US powers.
