About the episode
The Global South is not a homogeneous region. Countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia carry decades of shared experience in international affairs — and today they are an increasingly significant force in shaping the global order.
In this episode of Launch & Learn, we spoke with Gustavo de Carvalho about who is competing for influence across the Global South, how countries are responding, and why Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey are all making the same calculation: no single major power is sufficient on its own.
Key topics
- The growing confidence across the Global South and what is driving the pursuit of a stronger voice in international institutions.
- The role of BRICS and the African Union in giving Global South countries a platform — and what their members genuinely want from them.
- How countries in the Global South manage relationships with China, the US and Europe simultaneously — and why that is a strategy, not a compromise.
- The return of sphere-of-influence logic from both Washington and Moscow — and how countries are responding to the pressure from both sides.
- Sudan as a case study in what happens when external powers compete inside a domestic conflict — and why the Global South itself should be the one winning.
- The tools countries in the Global South are using to project their interests on the global stage — beyond BRICS, beyond the UN.
Meet Gustavo de Carvalho
Gustavo de Carvalho is a Senior Researcher on African Governance and Diplomacy at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and an international relations consultant. Over two decades he has worked across Africa, Latin America and Europe, advising international actors on governance, diplomacy and multilateral affairs. He holds a Master's in African Studies from Oxford and is currently pursuing doctoral research at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, exploring how Brazil and South Africa navigate the evolving global order.
Watch the podcast
