The Global South Perspective
Intelligence on behaviour, confidence, and leadership shaping emerging-market economies. Understanding the human, cultural, and economic forces defining the Global South.
Human Intelligence for Emerging Worlds
We measure not just growth, but consciousness.
We track the signals standard reports leave out — trust in institutions, cost-of-living stress, migration intent, and the value of time. This explains why citizens in growing economies still feel squeezed.
Tin Tuna Index · time-as-value experiment
Mind Economy Snapshot · 2025
Based on IMF World Economic Outlook (April 2024), large Global South economies will continue to outgrow advanced economies in 2025. But citizen sentiment is not rising at the same pace — price stress, weak services, and low institutional trust create a mind gap.
Sources: IMF WEO Apr 2024; World Bank services data; The State of the Mind behavioural layers.
Growth steady, sentiment uneven
Watch India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia for confidence; watch Nigeria, South Africa for service drag.
| Economy | IMF 2025 GDP proj. | Human signal to watch |
|---|---|---|
| 🇮🇳 India | 6.5% IMF WEO Apr 2024 |
Urban services, youth jobs, skills absorption |
| 🇨🇳 China | 4.1% IMF WEO Apr 2024 |
Household confidence, property clarity, job quality |
| 🇮🇩 Indonesia | 5.1% IMF WEO Apr 2024 |
Service quality, education outcomes, price sentiment |
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | 2.1% IMF WEO Apr 2024 |
Inequality fatigue, security perception, trust in policy |
| 🇿🇦 South Africa | 1.3% IMF WEO Apr 2024 |
Energy, service delivery, institutional confidence |
| 🇳🇬 Nigeria | 3.0% IMF WEO Apr 2024 |
Inflation anger, reform tolerance, migration outflows |
How people actually experience growth (dataset: 2024–2025 pilot)
Scores combine inflation pressure, trust in government, migration intent (inverse), and service effectiveness. Higher = growth that is felt. Lower = classic “mind gap”.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
HII score: 90.3
High trust, low migration intent, strong services.
🇨🇳 China
HII score: 86.6
Very low inflation + 83% trust → top-tier experience.
🇮🇳 India
HII score: 81.6
High trust, low migration intent — services catching up.
🇮🇩 Indonesia
HII score: 81.0
Steady inflation, good services, very low desire to migrate.
🇻🇳 Vietnam
HII score: 80.0
Stable services and low migration keep sentiment positive.
🇷🇺 Russia
HII score: 68.7
Higher inflation and lower trust drag experience down.
🇧🇷 Brazil
HII score: 69.3
Trust 51%, migration intent 35% → uneven progress.
🇿🇦 South Africa
HII score: 65.2
Service delivery & jobs lower perceived wellbeing.
🇰🇪 Kenya
HII score: 63.9
Migration intent high → people still looking outward.
🇳🇬 Nigeria
HII score: 48.1
Inflation and migration outflows lower felt progress.
🇦🇷 Argentina
HII score: 17.8
High inflation wipes out trust — classic low-felt-growth state.
Source: internal CSV “Human_Intelligence_Index__HII__2024_2025___Global_South_Core.csv”. Year: 2024 base, 2025 outlook. Update numbers manually when refreshed.
UN46 Country Reports — building the human file on underreported economies
We track 46 Global South and African economies often sidelined in mainstream intelligence — through a human lens: trust, service delivery, time cost, migration pressure and leadership culture.
Published reports
Next in queue: 🇲🇱 Mali · 🇳🇪 Niger · 🇪🇹 Ethiopia · 🇰🇪 Kenya · 🇹🇿 Tanzania · 🇲🇼 Malawi
Data quality: A = official 2024 source · B = regional/multilateral proxy · C = to be collected. Current six are mixed A/B.
What we publish
Latest from the Mind Library
Fresh intelligence on behaviour, confidence and leadership in emerging-market economies.
Guns or people? What budgets say about a nation’s state of mind
We track how much emerging economies spend on defence compared to what they invest in people — education and health. A high defence share can signal insecurity, regional tension or low institutional trust. Our Human Priorities Index (HPI) rewards countries that prioritise human capability over militarisation.
Formula (illustrative): HPI = (Education% + Health%) ÷ Defence%. Higher = more human-centred. Update when new SIPRI / World Bank figures are released.
| Economy | Defence % of GDP | Education+Health % of GDP | HPI score | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇮🇳 India | ≈ 2.4% | ≈ 7.5% (5.0% edu + 2.5% health) | ≈ 3.1 | Strategic, but still human-leaning |
| 🇨🇳 China | ≈ 1.6% | ≈ 6.5% | ≈ 4.0 | Large defence, but investment in people strong |
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | ≈ 1.2% | ≈ 9.0% (6.0% edu + 3.0% health) | ≈ 7.5 | Strongly human-first budget profile |
| 🇷🇺 Russia | ≈ 3.9%–4.0% | ≈ 6.0% | ≈ 1.5 | Security-weighted; human spend lower share |
| 🇿🇦 South Africa | ≈ 1.0% | ≈ 8.5% | ≈ 8.5 | Clear human-development priority |
| 🇳🇬 Nigeria | ≈ 0.9%–1.0% | ≈ 5.5%–6.0% | ≈ 5.5 | Spending room exists, but service delivery lags |
*Values above are indicative based on public SIPRI / World Bank-style ranges for 2024–2025. Replace per country as new defence, education and health data become available.