Winning back the Global South: difficult but not impossible

In marking the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Ukrainian President Zelensky declared that opposition to Russia’s aggression had “united the whole world”. Zelensky has been right about many things in the last 12 months, but on this point, he was singularly wrong. The war in Ukraine has divided the world and revealed an important disconnect between the West and the Global South. This has been underscored in the number of countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America – between 47 and 53 depending on the particular vote – that chose to abstain in the three votes held in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn Russia. Others went along with the vote but subsequently refused to impose sanctions on Russia. Many of these are democracies such as Türkiye, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil or closer to home in Europe, Serbia. The 47 abstainers in the first UN General Assembly vote represent over 50% of the world’s population. 

All these countries have been collectively dubbed ‘the fence sitters’ and their refusal to align with the West over Ukraine despite being the recipient of much Western aid, investment, arms and other forms of assistance has generated much frustration and even incomprehension among Western leaders. Visiting West Africa recently, French President Macron admonished his African hosts for not standing up for the principles of the UN Charter, particularly with regard to non-aggression, respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of other countries. Yet the interpretation that the Global South gives to these values is often different from that of the West. For many of these countries, NATO’s military encroachment on Russia through enlargement and support for Ukraine is a threat to Russia’s sovereignty and a form of interference. They refuse to put all the blame on one side. As President Lula da Silva of Brazil has put it: “[Zelensky] is as responsible as Putin for the war.”

Moreover, priorities are often different too with the Global South putting the emphasis on development, adaptation to climate change, debt relief and pandemic resilience before standing up to aggression in the northern hemisphere. After all, Africans and Arabs have suffered endemic conflicts for years, killing even more than one year of all-out warfare in Ukraine and provoking refugee outflows on a similar scale. The West has taken far less interest in halting the aggressors or negotiating ceasefires and peace settlements to these conflicts. 

The war in Ukraine has also hit the Global South hard in terms of its disruptive impact on food and fertiliser supplies, inflation, supply chains and higher energy costs. Money for humanitarian relief and budgetary support has been diverted to Ukraine. Its humanitarian appeal has been funded almost 90% whereas appeals for Afghanistan and Yemen, home to the world’s two most acute humanitarian crises, have been funded only at around 40%. A similar figure applies to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan or the Rohingya refugees battered by fierce storms in their camps in Bangladesh. The European Union established the European Peace Facility with an initial capitalisation of €5.6bn off budget to which it has recently added a further €3bn. Originally this fund was designed to train and equip armies in Africa and the standby force of the African Union, but 90% of the funds thus far have been used to reimburse EU member states for the weapons they have transferred to Ukraine and for associated costs in training the Ukrainian forces. This is not to imply that the West is wrong in giving priority to pushing back against Russian aggression in Ukraine and that the Global South is right in its criticism. The West’s past mistakes in intervening in Iraq and other places do not make Russia’s aggression any less reckless and reprehensible. 

Yet, Ukraine has widened the perception gap between the West and the Global South by fuelling a narrative that its priorities and needs will always be pushed down the international pecking order when tensions in the northern hemisphere are on the rise. For instance, 20 years ago the industrialised countries promised to establish a climate adaptation fund of $100bn a year to help the climate-stressed countries in the South to deal with global warming. Yet by the time of the COP27 UN climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh last November, this target had still not been reached. The COP27 agreed in principle to establish a new fund to compensate the poorer countries for loss and damage, but as we draw closer to the next COP in Dubai this autumn, there is much scepticism that this fund will receive anything like what these countries were hoping for.

Over 80% of the world’s refugees and displaced people are in the poor and lower middle-income countries. Whereas ten years ago the UN estimated the number of people in dire humanitarian need at 81mn, today that figure has risen to 350mn. World Bank reports from 2020 show that people born in conflict zones or poor countries with a high level of violence are ten times more likely to end up in extreme poverty than those born in stable countries. Over 600mn Africans still have no access to electricity. The World Health Organization has calculated the cost of pandemic prevention in the Global South at $15bn a year, which is less than half of what Americans spend annually on pizza. It is also a tiny figure when we think of the trillions of dollars we have spent fighting COVID-19 and the 15mn plus deaths worldwide. It is figures like these that drive perceptions of unfairness and injustice, and the sense that Ukraine is but one conflict among many, no more or less deserving of attention than all the others. 

At the same time, the countries of the Global South have discovered the advantages of sitting on the fence and not taking sides. This is not China and Russia supplanting the United States or the EU, as is often claimed by some analysts particularly when it comes to the Middle East. The US still has its extensive network of military bases and is the principal security provider to many countries in the region. Yet the increased presence and activism of China and Russia, whether it is in the form of Confucius Institutes or Wagner mercenaries, now gives the Global South more options and the sense that it can pick and choose.

The US produces the best weapons and gives the most explicit and reliable security guarantees. China is much more vague in this regard. Yet Beijing gives infrastructure finance with no strings attached and no criticism of poor governance or human rights abuses at a time when many countries of the Global South have lapsed into rigid authoritarianism. Russia is prepared to intervene to support dictators against their opponents either using its own forces or mercenaries and proxies. It is willing to put its diplomatic heft behind its Global South partners in the UN or other international bodies, shielding them from intrusive investigations or criticism. Türkiye can be in NATO but also have a foot in the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It contracts with Rosatom for its nuclear power stations but also sends its Bayraktar drones to Ukraine. India can be a member of the Western QUAD grouping in the Indo-Pacific but also participates in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and will join Russia and China in South Africa for the upcoming BRICS summit. India relies on Russian weapons to defend itself against China but China has now become its largest trading partner. Indeed, Beijing is now the largest trading partner of 120 countries across the globe. Egypt is the third largest recipient of US military aid but imports much of its grain for its 100mn plus population from Russia. A recently leaked Pentagon paper claimed that Cairo was secretly planning to ship 40,000 missiles to Russia. 

Hedging has become the preferred strategy for scores of countries in the Global South, as a way of always putting their immediate national interests first and minimising the need for painful concessions or quid pro quos from their superpower patrons. Having seen the way in which countries of the then ‘Third World’ were forced into the Western or Eastern camps during the Cold War and caught up in the grinder of US-Soviet confrontation, from which few emerged more secure or prosperous, they see hedging as a way to diversify their risks and increase their influence on the international stage. A perception of US or European hypocrisy makes it easier for them to justify sitting on the fence in the face of the obvious imperfections of the Chinese or Russian models. Freedom House in Washington, for instance, has pointed out that of the 50 dictatorships on its list, 33 receive US military aid every year.

Whereas many in the West see the interventions in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya as having been motivated by good intentions and a genuine desire to help local populations, no matter how imperfect the implementation, many in the Global South just see Western troops going in without the authorisation of the regime in place and refusing to make the necessary concessions and compromises to avert war or bring about an early peace. 

The war in Ukraine has been unsurprisingly a wake-up call for the Western democracies when it comes to their declining influence in the Global South. The perception of US or European disengagement, particularly over the blockage in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute or the Syrian conflict, has made the US or the Europeans as unpopular as when they sought to dominate the diplomacy and negotiations. This has been a retort to many outside observers who claimed that by staying out of these disputes and adopting a policy of non-interference, the West would burnish its image as an honest broker and regain the trust of local populations. The opposite has happened. So, the last year has seen a game of catch-up with US and EU leaders fanning out across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Central Asia. US Secretary of State Blinken has been to Africa four times and President Macron three. Two weeks ago US President Biden was due to visit Papua New Guinea after the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, the first-ever visit by a US president, but the visit was cancelled at the last minute because of the debt ceiling crisis back in Washington. Woody Allen famously said that “80% of success in life is just showing up.” This is a lesson that Western chancelleries have now learned in terms of increasing their visibility in the Global South.

The message has changed too in the sense that the old emphasis on defence and security linked to arms sales and counter-terrorism is gradually being replaced by a new discourse that emphasises better governance, respect of human rights, improving education and skills, and more sustainable economic growth models. These are not themes that will resonate with authoritarian regimes but with the local populations. They are a better basis for rebuilding trust over the long term. Many authoritarian leaders will always prefer to meet with Western defence ministers or key military figures like the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) to talk security. Hence the importance of dispatching to the Global South finance, education, culture and environment ministers to broaden the dialogue. 

The G7 holding its annual summit in Hiroshima a few days ago was also keen to stress its engagement with the Global South. The leaders of Brazil, Indonesia and India were present, as well as Comoros, representing the incoming Presidency of the African Union, and the Cook Islands, representing the Pacific Islands Forum. Interestingly South Africa was not present. Its tilt towards Russia and China, demonstrated in a recent joint naval exercise with these two powers and its invitation to Putin – now indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court – to participate in the BRICS summit in August, has made it a less attractive partner. The United States also invited the Citigroup banking corporation to participate in some of the G7 discussions. Since the US-Africa Summit in Washington last November, a constant theme of the Biden administration has been the need to involve the private sector and private capital in development projects in the Global South as a means to complement official aid and make these projects more sustainable. Private sector investments are also more likely to lead to further investments across the supply chain. This could give the Western offering an edge over the mainly state-driven investments coming from China and Russia.

One key objective of the meetings in Hiroshima was to appeal to the representatives of the Global South to be more supportive on Ukraine. Yet the G7 spent a lot of time discussing debt relief for the most heavily indebted countries, an area where it does have the lead but has sometimes had a difficult time persuading China to go along with debt cancellation packages or ‘haircuts’. It has already agreed on a relief package for Zambia. The G7 also committed to an infrastructure investment programme with an initial capitalisation of $600bn. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said that this investment money could be leveraged to provide trillions in private sector investment.

The G7 initiative follows the EU’s Global Gateway investment plan and a similar fund established by the US Congress to offer the Asia-Pacific countries an alternative to Chinese loans. The idea is that these G7 actions will help to shape the agenda for the G20 Summit in India in September when China and Russia will also be present. Biden commented that the G7 “can deliver and we have to deliver” on its promises, showing a sense of urgency that early wins in this area are needed to establish the West’s credentials. Zelensky, also present in Hiroshima, decided not to leave things entirely in the hands of his transatlantic partners but to reach out to the Global South by himself. He participated in the summit of the Arab League hosted by Saudi Arabia on his way to Japan and also sat down with Lula and the Indian leader, Narendra Modi, in Hiroshima. Understanding that these fence-sitters would not suddenly swing in favour of Ukraine, Zelensky emphasised potential contributions from these countries in areas like demining, humanitarian aid and reconstruction.  

It is easy to be sceptical or even cynical about these high-level international gatherings with their headline announcements designed above all for media consumption. Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, was quick to question the utility of the G7 Summit, stating that it was pointless for Global South leaders to fly all the way to Japan for a brief two-hour set of pre-written speeches with their G7 counterparts. True enough, but if the democracies of the northern hemisphere are serious about healing the North-South divide, they have to start somewhere. And some guiding principles might come in handy here. In the first place, not to harbour unrealistic expectations and hope that major Global South powers will suddenly and decisively re-tilt towards the West, in the way that Anwar El Sadat of Egypt dramatically threw his Russian advisors out and turned towards Washington after the Yom Kippur war in 1973. The great mouthpiece of the Global South, Lula, has just returned to the presidency of Brazil. President Erdoğan of Türkiye has recently won yet another election in Türkiye. The Indian Congress Party has just won a regional election in India against the all-powerful Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Yet in the unlikely event that Congress returns to power in New Delhi, we can hardly expect it to abandon the non-aligned policies of Gandhi and Nehru.

As mentioned earlier, the fence-sitters like where they are, safeguarding their own interests rather than serving those of others. So, the West needs patience and to play the long game, accepting that its Global South partners will have dealings with Russia and China but not seeing this as a zero-sum game, in which a gain for one side is automatically a loss for the other. Having loosened their dependence on the West, the leaders of the Global South are hardly likely to accept becoming subservient to the Chinese or Russians. Western democracies need to demonstrate through actions rather than declarations and communiqués that it is they who have the solutions to 21st-century security challenges, and not the boastful authoritarians. That means talking less the language of security and more the language of climate resilience, pandemic preparedness, food production, health sector improvements and a renewed commitment to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were first announced 20 years ago, back in the days of the George W. Bush administration only to be overshadowed by the US invasion of Iraq.

Western foreign and international aid and development ministries need also to rethink the notion of global public goods in the 21st century, the infrastructure and services from which everyone, rich or poor benefits. According to some calculations, the US State Department spends only 6% of its annual budget on activities targeted at global public goods. It is much easier to spend the money on individual countries for diplomatic or geostrategic advantage than on projects benefiting everyone across the globe and for which the donor perceives less immediate benefit or ‘return on capital’. Thus, a change of culture and mindset is required as much as a change in investment priorities. 

In short, Americans and Europeans need to improve their offer to the Global South. There are a number of ways in which they could do this. Announcing a suitably ambitious fund for climate loss and damage at the COP28 with a robust initial capitalisation would be an important signal. As would agreeing in the G20 this autumn on plans to increase the funding reserves of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and to give the World Bank in particular a new strategy to invest in development projects. Its share of funding of new projects in the Global South has declined markedly over the last decade due to an over-cautious approach, a reluctance to support smaller projects and invest in fragile and conflict-ridden countries coupled with poor leadership and vision compared to the bank’s heyday when James Wolfensohn was its highly visible and vocal president 30 years ago. For instance, according to the analyst, Charles Kenny, the World Bank’s contributions as a share of gross national income of the countries borrowing from it fell from 4% in 1987 to just 0.7% in 2020. 

Other useful steps by the Western democracies would be to show more commitment to having representatives of the Global South in leading positions in the UN system and other international organisations. If the EU is a member of the G7 and G20, then there is no reason why the African Union should not be included in the G20. No reason either why the head of the World Bank is always an American and the head of the IMF always a European. No reason either why the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs always has a UK passport, although some of the incumbents have been undoubtedly excellent in the job, and the head of UN Peacekeeping always has a French passport. It will be hard for the West to give up some of its cherished international positions, but some rotation at the top – and thus ownership of the Global South in dealing with its own issues and problems – would be a step forward.

 After all, over 50% of the meetings of the UN Security Council over the past five years have been devoted to Africa, and 70% of UN Resolutions under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter authorising the use of force have to date concerned Africa. The issue of the membership of the UN Security Council, long debated but always postponed, must also now be tackled seriously to give more representation to Africa, Asia, the Arab countries and Latin America, and to finally do away with the veto that Russia has been using (or threatening to use) more and more to block Security Council action in Syria, Belarus or Ukraine and render the Security Council largely irrelevant, even in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. France and Mexico have proposed an initiative to suspend the veto right when it comes to preventing or responding to humanitarian disasters. It is an interim reform step that is worth pursuing. 

Finally, a positive message to the Global South from the US and Europe would be to take the recommendations of the international commissions and study groups that they sponsor to look into global issues more seriously. At any one time, there are hundreds of former prime ministers, statesmen and women, and prominent scientists and academics serving on UN and other international commissions tasked to come up with fresh ideas to improve global governance. There were 11 high-level panels on pandemic prevention in the last 20 years alone. But much work and imaginative thinking came to naught when the reports and recommendations were quietly shelved and forgotten, often by the same governments that established the commissions with great fanfare in the first place. One idea in particular does deserve to be seriously investigated and debated; it is to activate Article 109 of the UN Charter, which provides for the charter to be reviewed and modified in light of a changing international system. As the UN Charter is now 78 years old and was designed for a very different world, it may be a positive gesture to the Global South for the US and EU to propose a new UN commission to do precisely this. 

Another useful change of strategy would be for the West to focus less on the risks and dangers of cooperating with Russia and China, and more on the progress of its own engagement with the Global South. For instance, how many know that 90% of the international aid to Somalia comes from the US? India and the US have signed a number of important technical cooperation agreements over the past two years. One, the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies, was on cooperation in quantum computing, semiconductors and commercial space operations. Another, signed last January, was in the military-defence field and called the Defense Industrial Cooperation Roadmap. It covers jet engines, munitions, surveillance and reconnaissance, and maritime security. Pointing to these examples of successful engagement can help to counteract the common view that China and Russia are pushing the West out of the Global South and depriving it of options to push back. This is far from the truth. The West needs to regain its self-confidence and its mojo. 

A closing thought is to tone down the rhetoric of a global clash between authoritarians and democracies. This narrative may make sense in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. But these categories are less understood or recognised in the Global South where the virtues of democracy are less appreciated. It was after all Western democracies that colonised Africa, Asia and the Middle East from the mid-19th century onwards. The West may think that colonies are now a thing of the past and that it is time for Africa in particular to move on and stop blaming all its failures on the legacy of colonialism. Yet this legacy is still keenly and sincerely felt in many African countries. More sensitivity in Western communications whereby the former colonial powers acknowledge their mistakes more candidly and refrain from lecturing would help to provide a fresh context to reboot the West’s strategy.

Talking in terms of law and order, and adherence to a common set of rules versus anarchy and impunity might resonate more with the Global South than categories of democracy and authoritarianism. Asked what he thought of Western civilisation, Gandhi replied that he thought “it would be a fine thing”. So, more modesty in communications and a better balance in what the West wants from the Global South versus what it intends to give need to be the corollary of more Western self-confidence. 

William of Orange believed that actions needed to be undertaken even when there was no hope of success. Yet the Global South is far from being a lost cause even if we are in for a long haul. 

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.