The Global South is a political and economic grouping of nations, spread across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, that share histories of colonization, lower industrialization, and structural disadvantages in the international financial system. The label has largely replaced older terms like “Third World” or “developing nations,” and it now anchors negotiations over trade rules, sovereign debt, climate finance, and digital governance. Membership is defined less by latitude than by economic position and shared bargaining interests at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the international financial institutions.
How the Grouping Is Defined
Income is the most commonly cited metric. The World Bank’s Atlas method sorts every economy into four brackets based on gross national income per capita. For fiscal year 2026, the thresholds are $1,135 or less (low-income), $1,136 to $4,495 (lower-middle-income), $4,496 to $13,935 (upper-middle-income), and above $13,935 (high-income).1World Bank. World Bank Country and Lending Groups Countries in the first three brackets tend to share features like heavy reliance on agriculture or raw-material exports, limited access to private capital, and persistent debt-sustainability pressures. Those features, not the income number alone, are what make the grouping analytically useful.
Money captures only part of the picture. The Multidimensional Poverty Index, developed by the UN Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, tracks ten indicators across health, education, and living standards, and it counts a person as poor when they are deprived in at least one-third of the weighted indicators. Two countries with similar GNI figures can look very different when measured this way, which is why development targets increasingly go beyond raising GDP.
Reaching middle-income status does not guarantee continued growth. Economists use the term “middle-income trap” for countries that industrialize enough to leave low-income status but stall before reaching the high-income bracket, which currently begins at $13,935 in GNI per capita.2World Bank Group. Middle Income Countries Rising labor costs undercut cheap manufacturing, domestic innovation lags, and institutional bottlenecks discourage investment. The trap shapes how Global South governments negotiate trade concessions, seek development financing, and design industrial policy.
Which Countries and Regions Are Included
Despite the name, the grouping is not tied to the Southern Hemisphere. Large parts of Africa and Asia sit entirely north of the equator, yet their economic profiles place them squarely inside it. Latin America, the Caribbean, much of Southeast Asia, and nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa fall under the label. The division is political and economic, not cartographic.
The familiar visualization is the Brandt Line, popularized in 1980 through the report “North-South: A Programme for Survival,” led by former German chancellor Willy Brandt.3British International Studies Association. The Brandt Line After Forty Years The line curves across the map to separate wealthier industrialized nations from poorer ones, placing Mexico and much of Southeast Asia on the Southern side while grouping Australia and New Zealand with the North.
Four decades later, the line holds up better than many expected. Research examining income data from 1980 to 2020 found that very few Southern countries overtook any Northern country during that period. China’s share of the world economy grew roughly tenfold since 1980, and the combined GDP advantage of OECD nations over the South narrowed from about 4.5 times to about 2.5 times. That shift, though, largely represents movement within the South’s own rankings rather than a closing of the North-South gap. Politically, the rapidly industrializing economies still vote and negotiate alongside the rest of the Group of 77 on major international issues.3British International Studies Association. The Brandt Line After Forty Years
The Blocs That Speak for the Global South
Global South nations have built a dense network of intergovernmental organizations to coordinate their positions. These blocs give individual countries leverage they could never generate alone.
The Group of 77
The Group of 77 is the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries inside the UN system. It was created to help member states articulate collective economic interests and strengthen their joint negotiating position on trade, finance, and development.4Group of 77. About the Group of 77 Much of its institutional footing traces to UN General Assembly Resolution 1995 (XIX), which established the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as a permanent organ of the General Assembly.5United Nations. UN General Assembly Resolution 1995 (XIX) – Establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD remains the primary UN platform where these nations push for fairer trade rules, debt relief, and technology transfer.
BRICS
BRICS has grown well beyond its original five founders. As of 2026, it includes eleven full members: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.6BRICS India 2026. About Us Indonesia joined in 2025, and that same year ten partner countries were added: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.7BRICS India 2026. FAQs The expansion reflects a deliberate push toward a multipolar economic order with alternatives to Western-led financial institutions.
The most concrete product of that push is the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai. By mid-2025, the NDB had cumulatively approved roughly $39.7 billion across 123 projects in member countries, with a strategic goal of directing 40 percent of its financing toward climate mitigation and adaptation through 2026.8New Development Bank. New Development Bank Investor Presentation Members have also proposed linking their central bank digital currencies to allow direct settlement between national currencies without networks like SWIFT. That initiative remains in the proposal stage as of mid-2026, with India’s central bank leading the technical design work.
The G-24 and the African Union at the G20
The Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four coordinates developing-country positions specifically inside the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Its mandate covers monetary policy, development financing, and institutional reform, giving Southern members a unified voice in forums where voting power has historically been weighted toward wealthy nations.9Intergovernmental Group of Twenty Four. Mandate and History
At the G20, the African Union’s permanent membership gives Africa direct participation in leaders’ summits, ministerial meetings, and finance-track discussions. The AU’s stated priorities for the 2026 cycle include reform of international financial institutions, a just energy transition, and the rollout of the African Continental Free Trade Area.10African Union. AU Member States Convene to Advance Africa’s 2026 G20 Priorities Aligned with Agenda 2063
Legal Footing in International Trade
Global South nations anchor their legal position on two pillars: the Right to Development and the system of trade preferences built into the World Trade Organization.
The Right to Development
The UN Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted by the General Assembly in 1986, frames development as an inalienable human right. It obliges states to cooperate in removing obstacles to development and to pursue a new international economic order grounded in sovereign equality, mutual interest, and interdependence.11Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Declaration on the Right to Development Global South governments invoke this right to argue that trade and finance rules must account for historical disadvantage. The same call for a new economic order underpins demands for greater voting power at the IMF and World Bank and for restructuring sovereign debt on terms that do not strangle domestic social spending.
WTO Special and Differential Treatment
Inside the WTO, developing countries benefit from Special and Differential Treatment provisions embedded across multiple agreements. These include longer implementation timelines, measures designed to expand trading opportunities for developing countries, and obligations on all members to safeguard developing-country interests. The Enabling Clause provides the legal foundation for the Generalized System of Preferences, under which developed countries offer lower or zero duties on imports from developing countries without requiring matching concessions. For least-developed countries, the TRIPS Agreement grants extended timelines for implementing intellectual property protections and encourages technology transfer from wealthier members.12WTO. Development – Special and Differential Treatment Provisions
Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform
One of the sharpest legal battles involves the system that lets foreign investors sue host governments directly through international arbitration, known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement. Global South nations have long argued that ISDS panels are expensive, unpredictable, and biased toward corporate claimants. UNCITRAL Working Group III is drafting supplementary provisions in response.13UNCITRAL. Possible Reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) – Draft Supplementary Provisions
As of April 2026, the proposed changes would let costs follow the losing party to discourage speculative claims, require disclosure of third-party funders, give tribunals a fast track to dismiss claims manifestly without merit within 60 days of formation, set deadlines of 60 to 240 days on awards depending on complexity, and confirm that interim orders must not impede a government’s right to regulate in the public interest, including protections for health and the environment. The reforms are still being negotiated, but they signal a shift in the legal architecture governing foreign investment in Southern economies.13UNCITRAL. Possible Reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) – Draft Supplementary Provisions
Climate Finance and Loss and Damage
Climate change hits Global South nations hardest while they bear the least responsibility for cumulative emissions. That asymmetry drives the demand for climate finance, and the most significant recent breakthrough is the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, established at COP27 and now operational. The Fund channels money to countries suffering climate-driven harms like rising sea levels, extreme heat, and crop failures that go beyond what adaptation can prevent.14UNFCCC. Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage The World Bank serves as trustee, the Philippines is the host country, and the Fund’s board had held seven meetings by October 2025.
The Santiago Network provides the technical infrastructure alongside the Fund. Its mandate is to connect vulnerable developing countries with organizations and experts that can help them assess, prevent, and respond to climate-related losses, covering risk assessment, early-warning systems, and access to financing and technology under the Paris Agreement.15UNFCCC. About the Santiago Network
Sovereign Debt and the G20 Common Framework
When a country spends more on debt service than on healthcare or education, every other development goal stalls. The G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments, established in 2020, provides a structured process for countries to negotiate relief with both official and private creditors.
Eligibility is limited to countries that qualified for the earlier Debt Service Suspension Initiative, which covers all IDA-eligible countries and all UN-designated least-developed countries current on their payments to the IMF and World Bank. A country must demonstrate a need for restructuring based on an IMF-World Bank debt sustainability analysis and commit to seeking comparable treatment from all creditor classes, not only official bilateral lenders.16G20. G20 Note – Steps of a Debt Restructuring Under the Common Framework The first countries through the process were Chad, Zambia, Ghana, and Ethiopia. The framework is non-binding and handled case by case, which critics argue makes it too slow.
To speed things up, the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable issued an updated “Restructuring Playbook” and a “Liability Management Operations Manual” in April 2026, giving country authorities step-by-step guidance on the key concepts and processes involved in a debt restructuring.17International Monetary Fund. Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable – 6th Co-Chairs Progress Report
Digital Sovereignty and Data
A newer frontier involves control over data and artificial intelligence. Multinational technology companies collect large volumes of data from users in countries with limited domestic tech industries, then use that data to train AI systems that primarily benefit the companies’ home countries. For nations on the losing end, the pattern echoes older forms of resource extraction.
In response, a growing number of countries have adopted data localization laws that restrict where data about their citizens can be stored and processed. Some rules require all data to stay on domestic servers; others permit international transfers only when the receiving country meets adequate privacy standards; still others require companies to keep a local copy so that domestic regulators and law enforcement can access it. The AI dimension sharpens the concern, because training data is the raw material of machine learning, and countries that lose control of their citizens’ data also lose influence over the models built from it. Data localization is the legal tool Southern governments are reaching for to keep the technology gap from becoming permanent.