Global growth has stagnated at 2.7% since 2023, and the future of the global South remains bleak as the region continues to grapple with the burdens of high debt-servicing and the limitations of external development financing. Critiques of the efficiency of globalised supply-chains, the precarity of labour conditions, and the overall volatility of the neoliberal architecture continue to mark the current economic landscape. In an uncertain economic and political environment, protectionism is rising in the North led by ultranationalist right-wing parties that further exposed the crises of hyper-globalisation and the inherent contradictions of the capitalist model.

Multilateralism is under increasing pressure as geopolitical conflicts, trade wars, and the climate crisis remain unresolved. Multilateral institutions have responded with false solutions to critical issues—a likely outcome when these spaces accommodate those responsible for the crises.

The continued aversion of developed nations to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” prevents any significant step forward for genuine development, especially in countries governed by right-wing climate change denialists. The top polluters in the world, historically and currently, are concentrated in the global North. Meanwhile, the global South has had more to lose in terms of the equal share in the direct benefits of fossil fuel use, including industrial base building and energy consumption. Southern countries continue to bear the brunt of the effects of changing weather patterns and rising temperatures. Little positive change can be expected when fossil fuel lobbyists far outnumber those advocating for real solutions in spaces where resolving the climate crisis should be priority.

Crisis generates people’s resistance. The urgency to build stronger people’s movements that will go against the resurgent tide of right-wing authoritarianism grows larger. As the crisis of monopoly capitalism pushes the Northern states to turn to protectionism once again to maximise profits, the peoples of the global South are presented with opportunities to assert sovereignty. South-South cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit and non-interference can challenge neocolonial ties and may allow for an expansive policy space to discuss sovereign industrialisation, democratised development, and find ways to prevent another reorganisation of the same exploitative systems.