• South-South cooperation should complement, not replace, North-South cooperation. In an interdependent world, new forms of cooperation are needed, but replacing one hierarchy with another is unlikely to be transformative.
   
• Middle powers and Global South countries must avoid reproducing existing power asymmetries. South-South cooperation is not automatically progressive and can itself become extractive or unequal.
   
• The future of multilateralism depends on stronger Global South influence within international institutions. Rather than abandoning multilateral frameworks, Global South actors should help reshape them and develop new tools fit for today's challenges.
   
• Shared leadership requires more than representation. It means co-creating agendas, institutions, and solutions based on mutual benefit, local priorities, and genuine participation.
   
• Civil society solidarity matters as much as state-to-state cooperation. Stronger connections between social movements and civil society actors across the Global South are essential to advancing climate justice, debt relief, food security, and democratic accountability.

Several of the themes raised by Khair — including middle powers, South-South cooperation, debt, climate governance, and the role of civil society — will be discussed at the upcoming NSFF meeting from June 15-19 in Brazil. Below, Kholood Khair shares her reflections in full:

South-South cooperation arose decades ago as countries in the Global South decolonised in the 1960s and 1970s. It has gone through several iterations from supporting each other’s independence movements against European powers, to supporting one another within global institutions and through the creation of regional and international bodies such as the African Union (early 1990s) and, later, BRICS. More recently South-South cooperation has taken on a new lease of life with the emergence of middle powers amongst Global South countries and the presence of super powers within BRICS.

Though definitions of what constitutes a “middle power” vary, one more agreed-upon definition centres around these countries’ autonomy (though not total independence) from super-powers, particularly when it comes to exercising influence in the security and economic realm. Canada is typically invoked when as yet evolving definitions of middle powers require an example. But in the Global South, too, there are several countries emerging who exhibit middle power tendencies, even if they are not (yet) the middle powers they aim to be. Indeed, some Global South middle powers seem to be actively seeking “middle power” status through influencing the politics, economies, and security environments of weaker or poorer states, in the process learning how to be global powers through exploitation, rather than, for example, through mutually-beneficial South-South cooperation.

To be sure, Global South countries have always interfered with the affairs of other Global South countries, for example by supporting their rebel movements, through irridentist ventures or through asymmetrical economic deals; but more recently Global South countries that are also emergent “middle powers” are doing so in countries further afield, as they attempt to widen their spheres of influence and control. A pertinent example is the engagement of the UAE – and increasingly Saudi Arabia – in the Horn of Africa.

The perceived decline – which may indeed rather be the outsourcing – of US global hegemony and the rise of China as both an economic and a security partner for many states has catalysed opportunities for Global South countries to create space to exercise influence over domains that the west has withdrawn from, chiefly Africa. However, the extent to which “middle powers” from the Global South are reimagining relations with other Global South countries remains to be seen. Certainly, we have seen “middle powers” from the Global South reproduce extractive and predatory policies and practices, in large part to model the resource extraction-based economic trajectories of “developed nations.”

While there is much that unites Global North countries – histories, demographics, economic trajectories, there isn’t always much that unites so called Global South countries - consider for example Saudi Arabia and Botswana. What does tend to unite Global South Countries is their power differential with the Global North, which limits the relationship between Global South countries and the extent they are able to achieve equal footing with Global North countries. It’s time for these relationships to be rethought: global power dynamics work in fractals mirrored at local, regional and international levels. This can be seen in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic to the current security and energy disruptions caused by the war in the Gulf.

Self-sufficiency for and among Global South countries therefore needs to be cultivated as a matter of urgency, before the next global crisis hits. This applies to food security, energy provision and security needs.

South-South cooperation should not be looked at as a substitute for North-South cooperation or global cooperation and alliance building. As well as encouraging a fragmentation of international bodies and institutions, replacing North-South cooperation with South-South cooperation is unlikely to be transformational, structurally speaking. Global economic supply chains and the movement of goods, people and information are currently highly interdependent. Substituting North-South cooperation for South-South cooperation could well see global hierarchies of power become further entrenched into binaries where Global North countries abandon the international security systems created after WWII and Global South countries fall prey to what follows. That being said, the general global tendency towards a diminishing international legal adherence, war being seen as a first, and not last resort to settle disputes, and the defanging of global regulatory frameworks is becoming hallmarks of both Global North and Global South powers.

The US is still a global super power despite a steady shift in how it engages in the world. Middle powers’ ability to influence global affairs is still circumscribed by the US position, see for example the limp follow-through after Mark Carney’s speech at Davos earlier this year. But Global South countries, middle powers and non-middle powers alike can build robust solidarity frameworks amongst civil society not just state to state. This could vastly help to allow South-South cooperation to tend towards mutual benefit of peoples rather than reproduce economic dividends that benefit the few.

The UN and regional blocs, from the African Union (AU) to the League of Arab States etc. are today losing power when confronted with their ultimate threats. Meanwhile member states seek “mini-lateral” solutions rather than invest in larger bodies. How these institutions are financed is a big question: who is paying their assessed contributions? Who isn’t? What does the current US relationship with multilateral institutions mean for Global South countries? Research shows that Africa and other Global South countries that face complex challenges are best served by a global system that respects international laws, where multilateral institutions are strong and can temper or mitigate the predation of global powers.

Yet, African states are not fighting for the preservation of these laws and norms. That is because there is a distance between the champions of such global systems, especially in civil society and the governments who are willing to put personal political survival ahead of national interest. Global solidarity between the civil societies of Global South countries needs to be as strong and enduring as the symbiotic (though often transactional) relations between the leaders of Global South countries.

Member state organisations have always been most impactful when they have specialised in issues they want to target. Financing the sprawling agenda of the UN may seem, in the current economic outlook especially, to be a tall order. Global South countries need to engage such bodies on climate change, weapons proliferation, debt relief etc. and grow their influence inside these institutions. The withdrawal of powerful states presents an opportunity for Global South countries, not consulted in the immediate post WWII era, to co-create international tools and instruments that meet the challenges of today.

There needs to be a better sense, too, of what representation of the Global South looks like in these institutions: a seat for the AU at the UN Security Council will not automatically mean better representation for Africa – and Africans – in the world’s highest body, especially if African states are failing to provide developmental progress for their citizens and while conflicts between neighbouring African states continue to fester.

Amongst the topics that can be discussed in Brazil are:

• The essentials for a future beyond development assistance, especially given the cuts in overseas aid;
   

• Greater regional and South-South inter-dependencies especially given the impact of the War on Iran on global supply chains, agriculture and food security and energy supply, that are hitting the Global South hardest;
   

• Building civil society solidarity within the Global South to push governments on greater collaboration on climate change, debt relief, closer cooperation on natural resources and critical minerals
   

• How to bring about a global civil society compact to create consensus on emerging threats and crises

Within the Global South there already exist acute and growing asymmetries when it comes to financial capital, resilience to climate change, contribution to the climate crisis, whether countries are net importers or exporters of the weapons that the world is increasingly purchasing and the ability to take advantage of new technologies. Such asymmetries naturally grant some Global South countries far more cache in intervening in other countries’ affairs or influencing global discussions.

What is required to offset this is more intentional global solidarity and support to democratising and equalising forces within and across the Global South. There has been an awakening of civil society and social movements in many Global South countries in the past decades. Undeterred by the fate of the Arab Spring, which soon turned into an Arab winter, protests calling for changes to specific policies all the way to regime change have taken place in Nigeria, Kenya, Iraq, Sudan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Madagascar, to name but a few. There is little sign that this momentum is abating. But more powerful Global South countries are pushing back against this popular call for change if it does not meet their interests or supporting strong men where it does. Regional organisations need to be strengthened from within and without as member states seek to weaken their influence over their affairs.

Where participation in existing multilateral processes is missing, global civil society has to be willing to create their own processes that can support reforms in existing processes but that are not simultaneously bound by them. These new processes must be genuinely representative across class, race, gender, political inclinations and geographies.

There must also be genuine commitment to South-South cooperation such as in technology, knowledge sharing, and resources, rooted in mutual benefit, without conditions and an acute focus on local needs and demands of citizens. But first trust and a strong foundation need to be established. This foundation could be built on core needs shared across the world, in the Global North and the Global South, at the local level: poverty reduction and affordability; mitigating the causes and impacts of climate change (especially in the Global South, which has fewer protections) and ensuring energy availability and affordability; and protecting agriculture and food security. Once this foundation is laid, more robust South-South cooperation can develop around shared concerns such as on the future of AI and employment, the future of pensions and community care, and curbing weapons proliferation and wars.