Southern Voice Joint Statement Following 2025 Conference

In October 2025, members and partners of the Southern Voice network gathered in São Paulo, Brazil for the 2025 Southern Voice Conference, under the theme “Reimagining the Global Development Architecture.” As a network of 71 think tanks across 35 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, Southern Voice works toward a vision of balanced multilateralism. Our mission is to enrich global development debates by addressing power asymmetries and amplifying perspectives that remain underrepresented in global arenas.

We met at a pivotal moment. With five years remaining before the agreed 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals, the world is not on track. Inequality continues to rise; conflicts and environmental disruptions affect millions; trust in an increasingly fragmented multilateral system is weaker; and the countries most in need face growing financial constraints. In this challenging global economic and geopolitical context, it is important that we actively rethink the dynamics and priorities of the global development architecture. 

The Southern Voice Conference offered an important space to articulate a vision of more representative, fair, and effective multilateral decision-making processes; to reflect on how the Global South can leverage its strengths to achieve this vision; and to understand where Southern Voice can play our most meaningful role.