Global South Development Achievements and Challenges
Global South Research Center Thematic Report (15 September 2025)
By Wang Jinzhao, Carlos Correa (South Centre), Zhang Youyi, Liu Chen, Liang Weitang, Carlos Oya, Len Ishmael, Li Yuefen (South Centre)
The rise of the Global South is a defining feature of the profound transformation reshaping the world. In recent years, Global South countries have achieved significant progress in their economic and social development. Compared with the beginning of the 21st century, the total economic output of the Global South has grown by approximately 5.4 times, an annual growth of 5.1%, significantly higher than the global average of 3.5%. Industrial development has accelerated, industrialization has kept advancing, and some competitive industries have been fostered. Trade and investment have substantially expanded. Goods exports and imports as well as outward investment have all increased about fivefold. Many emerging economies have increased their investment in research and development, resulting in continuous enhancement of innovation capabilities. Historic achievements have been made in poverty reduction, with over one billion people in the Global South lifted out of extreme poverty. Significant progress has been made in health. The average life expectancy has risen from around 62 years to approximately 70 years. Access to education has been increasingly expanding. The higher education enrollment rate increased from 13% to 38%.
The overall development advances made by the Global South have enabled it to have become a crucial force driving common development and improving global governance. It has increasingly played a significant role in the cause of human progress. The Global South, a key engine of global economic growth, accounts for 85% of the world’s population, around 40% of the global economy, 46% of global goods exports, 57% of global foreign direct investment inflows, 45% of global manufacturing output, and approximately 50% of intermediate goods exports. The Global South is also actively engaged in addressing global challenges. Its involvement in the reform of the global governance system enhances the representation and voice of developing countries. In the meantime, it keeps strengthening platforms for solidarity and cooperation among emerging economies and developing countries, such as BRICS. It pushes forward establishing new multilateral development banks and deepening regional cooperation.
The achievements of the Global South are due to an overall peaceful and stable international environment, ongoing economic globalization, and accelerated and diffusing technological innovation on a global scale, and, within Global South countries, a heightened sense of autonomy and commitment to market-based approaches combined with active government macro-regulation.
It should be recognized, however, that the Global South faces new challenges. External shocks have had negative impacts on Global South countries, including a sluggish global economy, broken multilateral trading rules, intensifying global climate risks, and increasing occurrences of regional conflict and instability. Within Global South countries, some face significant gaps in infrastructure, great difficulties in development financing including limited resources and high costs, and inadequate resources in education and healthcare.
Looking ahead, the Global South should continue to actively integrate into global industrial and supply chains, and strengthen dialogue and cooperation with the Global North, promoting the North and the South working together in the same direction. At the same time, the Global South should seize the opportunities, embrace the fundamental trends, and advance solidarity and cooperation among themselves with the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity. The Global South needs to deepen economic and trade cooperation based on the principles of mutual support and complementarity of advantages, expand trade and investment collaboration prospects, step up technology transfer and knowledge sharing, enhance autonomous development capabilities, and advance new developments in the Global South.
Promoting a Symbiotic Relationship Between Trade Policy and Climate Action
By Vahini Naidu
This paper is based on remarks delivered in the lead up to COP30. It outlines how African countries are working to align trade, climate action, and development priorities through early transparency on climate-related trade measures, technology transfer, and the protection of policy space for green industrialisation. It also highlights the growing focus on critical minerals, the rise of unilateral climate-related trade measures, and the need to bring scattered initiatives into a coherent multilateral framework that supports fair and sustainable outcomes.
The Role of Advisory Opinions in Shaping International Climate Change Law
By Daniel Uribe Terán
This policy brief analyses how advisory opinions (AOs) from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) are fundamentally reshaping international climate law. These AOs are crystallising States’ climate commitments, transforming them from voluntary political pledges into binding legal obligations grounded in customary international law and human rights. This judicial shift establishes stringent, science-based due diligence standards, confirms State responsibility for harm, and provides a powerful legal foundation for accountability and reparation.
Leveraging the ICJ Opinion to Secure a Just Climate Future for the South during COP30
By Daniel Uribe Terán
The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Belém converges with the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, creating a critical inflexion point for global climate action. This policy brief analyses how the ICJ Opinion has the potential to reframe climate commitments, transforming them from political aspirations into legally binding obligations. The Opinion establishes objective standards for ‘due diligence’, integrates the CBDR-RC principle as a legal criterion for ambition, and inextricably links climate action with human rights. The ICJ Opinion confirms that a breach of these obligations triggers a duty of ‘full reparation.’ This policy brief recommends a strategy for developing countries to leverage this new legal framework at COP30.
Gamani Corea and his Enduring Legacy for the Global South
By Danish
Gamani Corea was an intellectual giant of the global South, with a long and illustrious career spent in strengthening multilateralism and advancing the common interests of developing countries. On the occasion of Gamani Corea’s birth centenary on 4 November 2025, this paper revisits some of his most notable contributions in the different domains where he played important roles, and examines their relevance for addressing contemporary challenges facing the global South. It further explores his vision and impact as part of the South Commission and in establishing the South Centre. Amidst weakening multilateralism and rising geo-economic turmoil, this paper explores how Gamani Corea’s legacy offers both inspiration and practical insights for developing countries in reshaping global governance. His ambition to strengthen Southern solidarity and collective action at the multilateral level continues to provide essential guidance for developing countries to accelerate sustainable development and ensure that no one gets left behind.
Advancing Responsible Foreign Investment through a Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises
By Daniel Uribe Terán
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) presents a complex dynamic, offering potential economic growth while posing significant risks of human rights abuses and environmental degradation. This policy brief considers that current voluntary frameworks, such as Economic, Social, and Governance (ESG) and voluntary due diligence standards, are insufficient to protect human rights, as they primarily focus on mitigating investor financial risk rather than preventing actual harm. Furthermore, the international investment regime, particularly the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, systemically undermines States’ sovereign right to regulate in the public interest. ISDS cases often penalise governments for enacting environmental, labour, and human rights protections, creating a “regulatory chill” that prioritises corporate profits over social welfare. The proposed Legally Binding Instrument (LBI) on business and human rights is presented as a necessary response to establish mandatory, enforceable obligations for corporations. This includes robust Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) and legal liability mechanisms, thereby rebalancing the system to ensure corporate accountability and align investment with sustainable development goals.
Statement by South Centre at the Ministerial Meeting on Artificial Intelligence, Data Governance and Innovation for Sustainable Development (G20 Task Force)
30 September 2025, Cape Town
The South Centre welcomes the G20’s effort to advance meaningful participation of developing countries in shaping a fair, safe, secure, responsible, inclusive, ethical, trustworthy, and sustainable global AI landscape. Data governance is a foundation for equitable AI. Countries are entitled to develop and adopt regulatory frameworks for AI systems, including to reflect diverse knowledge systems and fair remuneration for data contributions.
Taking Forward Digital Public Infrastructure for the Global South
By Danish
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has received significant attention for its role in promoting inclusive and effective digital transformation, particularly in the countries of the global South. Elevated onto the global agenda under India’s Group of Twenty (G20) Presidency in 2023, DPIs are now considered as key digital solutions for providing essential services like digital identity, financial inclusion, and access to e-governance platforms. Yet, realizing the full potential of DPI in developing countries requires building a policy and regulatory framework that fosters trust, protects rights and addresses persistent digital divides. Robust institutions and governance mechanisms are equally essential to ensure that DPI adoption is inclusive, equitable and aligned to national priorities.
This paper provides a snapshot of the recent policy and regulatory developments on DPI, as well as the relevant stakeholders at the national and international levels. It then considers the challenges of the digital divide for developing countries and briefly presents some national experiences on the use of DPIs for increasing financial inclusion and promoting e-governance. The paper concludes by offering some recommendations to fully harness the benefits of DPI for accelerating sustainable development and digital transformation in the countries of the global South.
Global South’s Aspirations for Inclusive Human Development
By Sudheendra Kulkarni
China’s epoch-changing success in complete eradication of extreme poverty by the end of 2020 has many lessons for other developing countries, including India, that still have a large burden of poverty. India and China, as the only two nations with populations over one billion, should expand all-round cooperation based on mutual learning. Without any doubt, this will prove highly beneficial to inclusive Global Development.
Submission on the Work Programme of the High-Level Champions and the Marrakech Partnership (CHLC/MP) 2025 and the Global Climate Action Agenda
South Centre
August 2025
Voluntary action is no longer enough. The South Centre submission to the UNFCCC calls for transforming the climate agenda to ensure true inclusivity, tackle harmful lobbying, and create accountability mechanisms and policy gaps.
Reflections on Global Development in Times of Crisis: Arguments in Favour of an Alternate Development Paradigm
By K. Seeta Prabhu
The multiple interlinked and interacting crises that the world faces today is of unprecedented range and magnitude, halting progress and causing even a reversal in crucial Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to well-being. The current situation of an unequal, unstable and unsustainable world that is fragile and leaves people vulnerable on multiple counts, is due to the policy decisions taken by national governments since the post second World War period that gave priority to economic growth and neglected both intra and inter-generational distributional issues. Economic growth was considered the end instead of the means it was meant to be and ‘being well-off’ was equated with ‘well- being’. The tendency to adopt a ‘Business as Usual’ approach is not an option as empirical analysis indicates that such an approach would lead to global warming that is 3–5 degrees Celsius above pre–industrial levels, which threatens the very existence of the planet. Earlier attempts at reorienting the current development paradigm towards equity and sustainability have not been successful, as exemplified by vaccine distribution during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the limited success of concepts such as inclusive growth and green growth. Often, the elements infusing equity have been add-ons to an inequitable growth process and are more in the nature of token gestures rather than serious efforts at change.
The combined human development and Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) approach that is proposed in this paper is promising as it has the ethical values of equity and sustainability at its core, propagates the notion of the ‘common good’ and thereby fosters responsible consumption and production. It is also people-centric and builds on indigenous knowledge and agency. The ushering in of this transformational development paradigm will require the forging of a new social contract between the State and Society. Additionally, the developed countries must recognise their responsibility towards the environment and extend support and cooperation to developing countries in the pursuit of a common agenda of attaining a more equal and sustainable world. Increased flow of financial resources to developing countries as well as devising new financing mechanisms enhancing the equity and efficiency dimensions of financing for human development so as to accelerate progress on the SDGs will also be of paramount importance.
