John Iduh Blog

The global south is everywhere and it's nowhere. It is everywhere because political leaders, including Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping, have recently adopted the term.  And yet it is nowhere. The global south is not labelled on any map nor in any atlas. Indeed, many countries considered part of it are actually in the northern hemisphere. Such cartographical contortions are silly—but then so is talk of “the West” when its coterie includes Australia and New Zealand. The simplest working definition of the global south is that it refers to most, but not quite all, non-Western countries.  "Global South" is also a term used to refer to countries and regions that are less economically developed, primarily located in the Southern Hemisphere. It includes countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania.  The term is often used in contrast to the "Global North," which refers to the more economically developed countries in the Northern Hemisph...