Making the Global South count

The world is increasingly organised around rivalries that many countries have little desire to join.

The world is increasingly organised around rivalries that many countries have little desire to join. The US and China compete for primacy; Russia’s war against Ukraine divides diplomacy; and conflicts in West Asia expose multilateral limits. Against this backdrop, the Global South has become a powerful diplomatic expression. India has helped bring it to the centre of debate. But can countries with different political systems, economic interests and security partnerships speak with one voice? Should India try?

BRICS Summit this year

The Global South is neither a precise geographical category nor a political alliance. It encompasses emerging powers, resource-rich states, small island nations and some of the world’s poorest economies. Their dissatisfaction with an unequal international order may overlap, but their priorities diverge. For an indebted African country, affordable finance may be paramount; for a Pacific island State, climate adaptation is existential; for a Gulf economy, energy security may come first. India and Brazil seek industrial development, access to technology, and greater influence over global rules.

A shared demand for a fairer order does not amount to a common foreign policy.

BRICS makes the distinction clear. It now has 11 members and 10 partner countries. Its scale is considerable, but economic weight does not guarantee political cohesion. China and India remain strategic competitors; Russia’s confrontation with the West shapes its priorities; Iran has a fraught relationship with Washington; and Gulf members maintain extensive commercial and security ties with western countries. Even reform of the United Nations Security Council raises competing claims to permanent representation.

The September 2026 BRICS summit in New Delhi reflected both the grouping’s ambition and its limits. Its declaration called for more representative global governance, inclusive artificial intelligence, resilient supply chains and greater participation by developing economies in higher-value production. It endorsed cooperation on critical minerals, digital public infrastructure and global value chains. These are consequential subjects, but declarations cannot change who owns fintech infrastructure, processes minerals or sets international standards.

India’s position is complex. It participates in BRICS while working with the US, Japan and Australia through Quad. It retains defence and energy ties with Russia, deepens partnerships with Europe and the Gulf, and manages a difficult relationship with China. This is strategic autonomy: preserving room to cooperate across rival camps. But India’s interests will not always match those of its partners.

India’s Voice of Global South Summits in recent years offered a platform to discuss debt, food and energy security, climate finance and technology. They gave countries space to articulate concerns often marginalised in larger forums. But convening is not representation. New Delhi can amplify shared concerns; it cannot presume that every developing country endorses its positions on trade, security or global governance.

India’s G20 presidency also offers a more practical model. The African Union became a permanent G20 member, bringing a continental organisation representing 55 states into a forum that had lacked a formal AU seat. The New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration also called for multilateral development bank reform and endorsed a voluntary framework for digital public infrastructure. These outcomes did not require agreement on every geopolitical dispute. They required negotiation around specific institutional and developmental interests.

The G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta on October 30 and 31, 2026, showed how difficult consensus has become. The US presidency issued a chair’s statement, not a joint communique, after discussions on energy security, supply-chain resilience and tensions around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. A chair’s statement records the presidency’s account, not a position accepted by every member. Even major economies struggle to agree when strategic interests collide.

India’s opportunity, therefore, is not to manufacture unity but to organise cooperation where interests intersect. Climate-vulnerable countries need predictable adaptation finance and resilient infrastructure. Mineral-producing economies want investment in local processing, skills and technology, not dependence on raw-material exports. Countries seeking digital inclusion need affordable computing, connectivity, secure data systems and a voice in setting AI standards. These priorities can unite partners without requiring identical positions on international conflicts.

Critical minerals are a revealing test. The transition to electric vehicles, batteries and renewable energy is increasing demand for minerals found in parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia. If extraction takes place in developing countries while refining, manufacturing and intellectual property remain elsewhere, the green transition could reproduce old dependencies. BRICS’ emphasis on benefit-sharing, value addition and economic diversification is welcome. India should press for transparent contracts, environmental safeguards, local employment and technology transfer.

AI presents a similar question of power. India and Brazil have large digital markets and growing technology sectors, but participation in the AI economy requires computing capacity, quality data, skilled researchers, reliable energy, and investment. Developing countries must help shape standards and safeguards, not merely comply with rules designed elsewhere. India’s digital public infrastructure experience can contribute if shared as an adaptable model, not exported as a template. Privacy, cybersecurity and accountability must remain central.

The institutional challenge is harder. Developing countries have long sought a greater say in the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Security Council. Reform is slow because existing powers have little incentive to surrender influence. India can build coalitions around concrete proposals, support African and small-State representation, and share expertise. Leadership sometimes means backing another country’s claim rather than placing its own first.

The Global South should not become a slogan defined by opposition to the West. Many members depend on western markets, investment, technology and security partnerships even as they engage with China. Maintaining multiple relationships is an assertion of strategic choice, not inconsistency.

India should measure its leadership by what changes beyond the summit hall: finance mobilised, markets opened, technology shared, local capabilities strengthened, and rules made more representative. Issue-based coalitions with island States on climate, African partners on mineral value chains, and wider groups on digital inclusion and development finance are more realistic than an imagined geopolitical bloc.

The Global South does not need a single voice. It needs institutions in which its many voices can negotiate without being ignored, and partnerships that turn overlapping interests into measurable gains. India has the diplomatic reach and developmental experience to help build them. Its credibility will depend on listening as much as leading, delivering at home and recognising that other countries are not supporting actors in its rise.

In a fractured international order, influence may belong not to the country that demands allegiance, but to the one that brings different states to the table, secures practical gains and keeps them talking. India’s task is not to make the Global South speak in unison, but to help ensure the world listens when it speaks in many voices.

That requires patient negotiation, credible domestic policy and a willingness to share the gains.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Amal Chandra, The Statement Fellow and coordinator, South Asia at Students For Liberty and Anusha Bhattacharjee, Centre for Research on Governance and Development.