Letter from the Editor
In the Global South, the economy is not an abstraction. It is the queue that steals a morning, the outage that cancels a day’s wages, the medicine that arrives late, the price that shifts between payday and purchase, the visa that becomes a silent export of talent, the currency that weakens without drama, then changes life anyway. We are told to celebrate “growth” while time is wasted, wages do not rise, and essentials become negotiations. That is not a failure of ambition. It is a failure of measurement, priorities, and accountability.
The Meridian exists because the Global South deserves analysis that is serious, verifiable, and unafraid of complexity. We are not here to perform outrage. We are here to publish work that holds up under scrutiny. The world is changing fast, and the old comfort stories are collapsing: that debt can be rolled forever, that subsidies are always protection, that a weak currency is a strategy, that development is inevitable, that the future will arrive simply because it is promised.
We do not write to impress the powerful. We write to make the system legible to the public, and to make policy accountable to arithmetic.
A Global South Perspective, Built Like an Intelligence Desk
The Meridian is a publication for readers who want the truth, not the theatre. We look at economics, politics, climate constraints, social stability, and institutional performance as one system. We study the forces that shape daily life: the import bill, the debt profile, the wage floor, the energy constraint, the food corridor, the logistics bottleneck, the credibility of the currency, and the quality of governance that sits behind each of these.
Mauritius is one of our reference laboratories, not our only subject. It is small enough to see the mechanics clearly, yet connected enough to mirror wider Global South patterns: import dependence, subsidy politics, currency pressure, asset heavy growth, and the slow conversion of time into stress. But our scope is larger than any single island. We publish for Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the wider emerging world that is too often treated as an afterthought in global narratives.
Neutral in Method, Firm in Red Lines
We are neutral in method. That means we follow evidence, compare baselines, test claims, and separate what we know from what we infer. We do not write to serve parties, factions, or personalities. We do not write to produce comfort. We write to explain what is happening, why it is happening, and what the trade-offs truly are.
But neutrality is not moral emptiness. We have ethical red lines. We oppose war and the politics of persecution. We oppose human rights abuse, torture, and the machinery of fear. We oppose modern slavery and human trafficking. We oppose systems that treat humans as expendable inputs. We believe that economies should serve humanity, not the other way around.
Our ethical spine
- Refusing advantage that comes from injustice.
- Protecting the vulnerable even when it brings no benefit.
- Choosing clarity over convenience.
- Acting consistently when no one is watching.
We measure progress not only by GDP, but by what people can reliably access: education, health, energy, food security, climate resilience, fair wages, and time. Time is the real currency. It is the one resource every person spends daily, and the one resource bad systems steal first.
We Are Independently Funded, by Design
The Meridian is independently funded. We do not take money to shape conclusions. We do not run paid political content disguised as analysis. We do not accept undisclosed sponsorship that distorts what can be written. Our credibility is our only durable asset. We protect it like a central bank protects its reserves: through discipline, transparency, and refusal to trade the future for short-term comfort.
Verification Is a Standard, Not a Claim
We verify our data and we show our working. When we cite numbers, we trace them to credible baselines: central banks, national statistics offices, audited reports, multilateral datasets, and primary documentation. When the evidence is uncertain, we say so. When we make an inference, we label it as inference. When we cannot confirm a claim, we do not publish it as fact.
What you can expect in our work
- Clear baselines and transparent definitions.
- Methods that can be checked, not conclusions that must be believed.
- Distinction between reporting, analysis, and judgement.
- Corrections when we are wrong, and dated updates when facts change.
We will correct openly. We will date corrections. We will update with new evidence. This is not a branding exercise. It is how serious institutions behave.
A New Year Requires a Clearer Lens
This edition is built around one idea: the Global South is not “behind”. It is being measured by the wrong metrics and governed under the wrong incentives. Our work examines debt maturity walls, subsidy loops, currency mechanics, the informal economy, climate shocks, institutional maintenance, and the social psychology of credibility. The goal is not pessimism. The goal is clarity.
Clarity changes behaviour. When citizens can see the corridor, they demand better choices. When policymakers can see the arithmetic, they stop pretending that slogans are strategies. When investors can see the risks honestly, capital becomes more intelligent. And when societies can see how time is being stolen, they begin to reclaim it.
We are here for that reclamation. We are here to make the system legible, so it can be improved. We are here to argue, with evidence, that the Global South can build economies that are productive, fair, and resilient. Not by copying the West’s narratives, but by building institutions that honour human life as the central objective.
Happy New Year. May this year bring less noise, more truth, and the kind of competence that quietly changes everything.
Editor in Chief and Founder, The Meridian
The Global South Perspective