The world claims to regard education as a universal right. Its financial system tells a different story.
New figures released by UNESCO show that 113 countries with a total population of 6.1 billion now spend more on servicing debt than educating their people. In low-income countries, debt payments are nearly four times education expenditure. In 18 of the most heavily indebted countries, governments spend at least five times more on debt than on education.
Completely off topic, but how is “global south” an acceptable term? Half of Africa is above the equator, and Australia is about as south as you can go. “South” vs. “North” as stand-ins for socioeconomic criteria feels gross.
The most developed countries in the world were mostly in the Northern hemisphere without that much north of them. Also, people got used to referring to the American aligned part as the West and the Soviet aligned parts as the East, so everything else got referred to as the South.
That explains the why the expression exists, but I’m still totally lost as to why it’s considered acceptable.
A lot of definitions take on relative, not absolute terms.
Same with Australia belonging to “the west” when it’s basically right below Southeast Asia.
I think we’re better off using “global periphery” to mean poor countries outside the imperial core. It’s also an established term already.