Need for south-south cooperation to confront the challenges posed by the global north as to north-south gap

Abstract

About 160 developing countries of the “Global South”, also called under the name and style the third world, are facing major development challenges, while Global north refers to the so-called developed countries of the west. Geographically, most of the countries of the `Global South` are in the Southern hemisphere, while the so called developed countries, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand, are in the northern hemisphere. The historical genesis of the term third world lies in an approach based on preclusion, that is, after the Second World War and the advent of the cold war the countries of the world could be categorized as: I. the first world which consists of western, industrialised, capitalist democracies (pre-dominantly Christian) II. the second world which consists of the Socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe including the erstwhile Soviet Union; and the third world consists of the rest. The problems to ameliorate the wretched condition of the four-fifth of the world population belonging to the South are diverse in nature. The South presents many drawbacks like mass poverty, paucity of capital, wealth, technology and other development resources that are essential ingredients in respect of self development. Because of these handicaps the countries of the South are helplessly dependent on North in respect of economy, finance, technology etc. By the result of which North has been able to exert undue pressures on the South and MNCs based on the North are able to exploit the weak bargaining power of the South. Why is the North –South issue becoming so important today? First of all the income gap between the North and the South is increasing. Income per head is being raised in the countries of the North .At the same time the problem of development of the developing countries soars up day-by-day. Now the question arises how can the countries of the South come out of such a miserable situation and accelerate the pace of development of their economies, making better utilization of their resource potential? The South Commission was established in 1987, with Julius Nyerere (former President of Tanzania) as the Chairman, and Dr. Manmohan Singh as member and General Secretary, pursued the scope for the South-South cooperation in the context of major development problems faced by developing countries. South Commission observed the crucial challenge that the developing countries face collectively is how to strengthen and diversify South-South cooperation. The development challenges faced by the countries of the South can lead South-South Cooperation a much needed strategy. Growing integration of the developed nations and signifying prosperity of such cooperation the need for SSC is reinforced.