Going South

"Global South" is a term coined in 1969 by Carl Ogelsby, an American writer and activist of the New Left.

- DEVENDRA SAKSENA

Global South was initially used as a synonym for the Third World, which replaced the original term after publication of the Brandt Report in 1980. Authored by an international commission led by former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, the Brandt Report distinguished between those countries with comparatively higher per capita GDP, concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere and poorer ones in the Southern Hemisphere.

An imaginary boundary, the 'Brandt line,' running from the Rio Grande into the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Mediterranean Sea, and over the vast expanses of Central Asia to the Pacific Ocean, demarcated the division. However, anomalously. many "southern," nations like India, lie in the Northern Hemisphere, while "northern" countries like Australia and New Zealand are located in the Southern Hemisphere. Presently, the Global South is synonymous with the Group of 77 (G-77), an inter-governmental organisation of developing countries founded in 1964 to promote the collective economic interests of its members, and to enhance their negotiating power in international forums. Today, G-77 has 134 members, and the UN has launched multiple bodies and initiatives for them, including a UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

The Global South spreads across vast expanses of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Carib bean. Its members range from Barbados to Bhutan, Malawi to Malaysia, Pakistan to Peru, and Senegal to Syria, making for huge economic, political, and cultural diversity. The Global South encompasses major emerging powers, like Brazil, India, and Nigeria, as well as smaller states like Benin, Fiji, and Oman. Some members of the Global South, like India, recorded impressive growth in the last few decades, while most plodded on. From a purely economic perspective, it is not proper to lump poor countries of Sub-Saharan Africa with the rich countries of the Arabian Peninsula.