Pays du Sud : Points communs et différences

GEOGRAPHY

To what extent is the global south an area of similarity and diversity?

To a certain extent, we could say that countries of the Global South are similar because first of all, the majority of their population is living in rural areas working in agriculture. Also, their infrastructures are weak, as well as their institutions and their services. For example, as a bad service, we could talk about the trains in Mumbai. They are so overcrowded that people have to sit on their roof or hold on to the windows from its outside to take it. It is very dangerous as its death rate is estimated at 9 people per day. Similarly, we can find poor public transportation services in many other countries from the Global South such as Indonesia, Thailand, Bolivia, Kenya or Pakistan. Regarding poor infrastructures, the case of Angola is very significant. In fact, following its civil war, the country had issues to deal with untreated water, poor efficiency and accessibility to electricity and damaged roads and railroads. This case is interesting because we could compare the state of the roads to other countries from the South (according to the Brandt Line) like Haiti or Chad. Furthermore, another characteristic that these countries have in common is the fast growth of their population and a young average age. For example, Senegal’s median age is 18.8 years old, Angola’s median age is 15.9 years old and Haiti’s is 23 years old. If we compare these numbers to those from developed countries like Canada (42.2 years old), France (41.4) and Russia (39.6), we can see that it is almost the double of the South countries’ median age.

However, as time goes on, differences between these countries begin to appear. For example, their population size. Chile counts 17,789,267 inhabitants whereas India counts more than a million. Also, these countries have different levels of corruption. Indeed, Mexico is the 135th country out 175 in the least corrupted countries ranking when China is at the 77th place. Countries can be differentiated with their historical background. Some of them faced civil wars (Ex: Angola), apartheid (ex: South Africa), the second Wolrd War (ex: China), slavery (ex: Senegal) and many other events that create diversity between these countries from the south. This diversity can be noted in the many different languages spoken in this area, but also by the different ethnics, religions, and cultures.

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