Why the Global South needs its Shared Space Architecture
Over-reliance on Western commercial satellites leaves developing nations exposed during geopolitical crises, making a sovereign public network essential for long-term security.
During the conflict in the Persian Gulf in March 2026, leading commercial satellite imagery providers, particularly those in the United States space sector, put many international clients in a difficult position. The majority of these satellites were allocated for imagery tasks requested by the United States Department of War, as required for the tactical operations of the U.S. armed forces. It became evident that when commercial imagery providers serve both civilian and military clients globally during periods of war and conflict, they tend to prioritise the interests of their resident countries while ignoring the exigencies of many in the Global South.
The Global South is susceptible to conflict; its defence forces are primarily terrestrial. For these nations, space assets are vital for protecting societal integrity, promoting economic development, ensuring environmental sustainability, and enhancing resilience to disasters. This emphasis is not due to a lack of willingness to participate in technologically advanced warfare but rather because the conflicts they encounter often originate from societal instability caused by economic inequality, environmental degradation, disaster vulnerabilities, and remnants of colonialism.
The Global South warrants a dedicated, purpose-driven space architecture—a constellation of geospatial and communication satellites—deployed exclusively for development cooperation.
The most favourable outcome of such an architecture, shared across the Global South, is that it is neither a prestige project nor devised for the geopolitics of nation-states. Instead, it functions as a ‘leap-frogging’mechanism for the majority of these developing economies to leverage and initiate a force multiplier aimed at enhancing their social, economic, environmental, and disaster resilience indices. A shared architecture among the Global South unlocks values that are unattainable for any single nation or even a limited coalition of regional developing economies.
Oxford Economics, the international economic advisory firm headquartered in the UK, projects that satellite broadband services based on low Earth orbit will augment the annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of developing nations by between 3 and 5%, thereby contributing nearly USD 800 billion to the global economy. Currently, a single day’s disruption of GPS services worldwide results in costs of USD 1 billion, in addition to numerous intangible losses. When dependence on a single system for positioning, navigation, and timing introduces such a significant economic vulnerability, developing contingency plans through a universal, pan-Global South framework appears to be a viable strategy. The deployment of optical fibre technology involves substantially high infrastructure costs per user, which in remote regions of Africa and Southeast Asia may range from USD 15000 to USD 30000. In such scenarios, a shared ‘orbitally-sustainable’ constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites could serve as a cost-effective alternative.
Most parts of the Global South are still agrarian and forestry-based economies. Many of these countries are now becoming test-beds of climate-smart agriculture and forestry, and through it they intend to not only make their practices resilient and increase yields but also leverage the vital green financing for benefiting their communities. Here as well, a shared geospatial data generation and sharing architecture would impactfully offer precision datasets that would help increase crop yields by 15-20%, reduce water and fertiliser consumption by almost 30%, and reduce fatalities due to natural disasters like floods, lightning strikes, and heat waves by almost 60%. Illicit economic activities such as unregulated fishing, mining, and logging lead to massive losses. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates that developing economies lose nearly USD 50 billion annually due to illicit fishing, crippling the livelihoods of nearly 200 million people who depend on fishing for food and income.
In the coming years, data sovereignty and digital sovereignty are anticipated to become crucial elements in safeguarding the security of emerging economies. Rather than depending on leased capacity from space-sector corporations in the Global North, which can discontinue their costly services at any time, developing nations should contemplate establishing satellite communications as a utility guaranteed by the state. This utility would possess sovereignty, either being owned by the nation itself or by a coalition of governments. While commercial services may not generate significant revenue through exorbitant subscriptions, sovereign satellite constellations could derive value from societal benefits and national economic development. Although leading space-faring nations maintain proprietary access to their technological assets and reserve the right to deactivate services, a state-guaranteed public utility would avoid such actions. Ultimately, the creation of a new framework for international governance encompassing digital, geospatial, and satellite communications will necessitate the assured adoption of space technologies by the Global South to achieve developmental objectives, a process that can only be realised through cooperative efforts. While terminating partnerships is generally inadvisable, continued reliance on the Global North tends to produce counterproductive outcomes.
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