In 2025, the Global South was playing an increasingly important role in reshaping the global understanding and practice of justice and equity. Its contribution wasn't about replacing existing structures, but about helping them evolve to better reflect today's global realities. As economic and demographic power shifts, so too does the legitimacy of decision-making processes, which must become more representative and inclusive.

by Hebah Abbas

In my view, 2025 did not represent a sudden or dramatic "tipping point" for the Global South, but rather a clear inflection in how it was perceived and how it perceived itself. What we were witnessing was a gradual yet irreversible shift from being seen primarily as a participant in global systems to increasingly acting as a shaper of them.

What feels different today is the growing sense of agency. The Global South's expanding economic scale, demographic weight, and institutional experience are fostering greater confidence in articulating priorities and engaging in global debates. This evolution is not about confrontation or replacement, but about maturation. Rather than merely playing catch-up, many countries across the Global South are now focused on long-term planning, capacity-building and strategic resilience.

If there was a turning point, it lay in the alignment between capability and voice. In 2025, the Global South appeared more aware of its collective significance and more deliberate in how it engaged with the international system. This was reflected in its active participation in mediation, development-led diplomacy, and regional stabilization efforts. What distinguished this engagement was its emphasis on dialogue, economic cooperation, and long-term capacity-building rather than political conditionality.

For the Middle East, this evolution was particularly relevant. Stability in the region was deeply linked to development, employment, infrastructure, and access to opportunity. Countries from the Global South, including China, increasingly approached regional engagement through this lens, prioritizing economic connectivity, reconstruction and institutional resilience alongside diplomacy.

In 2025, the growing influence of the Global South became visible through a convergence of developments across governance, economics and agenda-setting. This included an expanding presence in multilateral leadership roles, greater coordination in international forums, the evolution of platforms such as BRICS, and an increasing ability to shape discussions on climate, development and institutional reform.

Economic scale was a central factor in this shift. The Global South has become one of the primary drivers of global growth, trade and investment, with economies across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America playing an increasingly important role in global demand and production. This economic weight is gradually translating into greater confidence and influence in global economic dialogue.

Equally important is the qualitative dimension of this influence. Global South countries are not only contributing to growth, but also shaping future-oriented agendas by hosting major climate platforms, investing in energy transitions and digital infrastructure, and strengthening South-South cooperation. What stands out to me is the growing intentionality behind these efforts, with a clearer alignment between economic expansion and long-term development priorities.

Taken together, these trends suggest that the Global South's contribution to global growth is no longer peripheral or episodic. It is structural, increasingly coordinated, and steadily reshaping the contours of the global economic landscape.

In 2025, the Global South was playing an increasingly important role in reshaping the global understanding and practice of justice and equity. Its contribution wasn't about replacing existing structures, but about helping them evolve to better reflect today's global realities. As economic and demographic power shifts, so too does the legitimacy of decision-making processes, which must become more representative and inclusive.

The Global South brings perspectives shaped by development experience, institutional learning, and direct exposure to global challenges such as climate vulnerability, food insecurity and social inequality. These perspectives help ground global discussions in practical realities and long-term needs. Countries such as China have demonstrated how sustained investment in planning, capacity-building and development can translate into stability and progress, offering valuable experience that enriches broader global dialogue.

China's approach to long-term planning, connectivity and institution-building has contributed meaningfully to South-South cooperation, particularly by creating platforms that encourage participation, dialogue and shared development objectives. Initiatives that focus on connectivity and development, when guided by transparency, inclusiveness and sustainability, can help translate cooperation into lasting capacity.

Looking ahead, I am optimistic about the direction of cooperation between China, the Middle East and the wider Global South, not only because of its scale, but because of the values that increasingly underpin it. China's approach to development reflects a depth of wisdom rooted in patience, discipline and long-term thinking. In a world often driven by immediacy, this emphasis on continuity, learning and institutional strength carries important lessons.

As global leadership becomes more distributed, I believe the evolving engagement between China and the Middle East has the potential to stand as a thoughtful and constructive model of Global South cooperation, one that contributes positively to a more stable, balanced and forward-looking international order.

Editor's note: Hebah Abbas is the chairwoman of the Sustainability Committee at the Kuwait Water Association, and a member of the Executive Committee of the World Utilities Congress 2026.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.