FII Priority: Global South wants a more balanced world order, says Prof. Mohan Munasinghe

MIAMI: Countries in the Global South are increasingly asserting themselves and showing more independence, said Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference on Thursday.

“One of the important reasons is that there is a realization that 85 percent of the global population lies in these countries and only 15 percent in the so-called West,” he said.

BRICS countries — referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — in particular, have overtaken the G7 countries in terms of their contribution to the global gross domestic product.

As the BRICS countries expand with the potential addition of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Indonesia and Bangladesh, the Global South is looking at a new world order, as opposed to the existing order, which has been more or less shaped by Western countries since the Second World War, said Munasinghe.

The new priorities for countries in the Global South are “sustainability, economic development, raising the poor out of poverty,” and they are “less interested in military interventions or economic sanctions — those kinds of confrontational approaches,” he added.

Munasinghe strongly recommended integrating climate change into the sustainable development strategy for these countries.

“There is a way to balance what I call the ‘sustainable development triangle’,” which calls for economic growth to improve poverty while protecting the environment, and the “social and cultural matrix,” he said.

These countries “are a little tired of 500 or more years of colonial interventions” and they still remember the aggressive interventions from the West, he pointed out.

As it gains more power, fueled by the emergence of BRICS countries, the Global South has more hope, signaling a shift away from the Western-led unipolar world order to a more balanced, multipolar world.

Now, with digital technologies and “other new methods,” there are more opportunities for these countries that will allow them to have a “level playing field” and have their “dignity and self-respect restored,” said Munasinghe.