57 SOUTH AND NORTH JOINING FORCES The sustainable construction solutions developed in countries in the South are often shared with neighboring nations facing similar problems. This is true of eco-friendly technological innovations designed in Colombia and shared with Brazil, states Sustentabilidad para México’s Founding President Dario Ibargüengoitia, for social housing programs with high environmental performance criteria. While the same approach has been attempted 141% This is the estimated increase in the surface area of cities in the Global South within 50 years (vs. 2020), according to UN-Habitat(2) With its self-sufficient air conditioning system, TM Tower in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), completed in 2003, illustrates the awareness of countries in the South of the need to build sustainably. “There is growing interest in sustainable construction, and the practice is crescendoing.” DARIO IBARGÜENGOITA, founding president of Sustentabilidad para México between African and Asian countries, he laments a lack of intercontinental collaboration across the Global South. With one exception: “Despite specific regulations, India is taking astonishing action and is open to a kind of hybridization of its achievements.” In an age of globalization, ideas from the Global North very quickly reach the Global South and vice versa, generating inspired innovation or even a reinterpretation of technological solutions using local resources. (1) The definition of the term “Global South” remains vague insofar as it refers to an extremely heterogeneous group of countries: India, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Argentina, etc. To depict it on a world map, we could draw a line that runs between Mexico and the United States, separates Africa from Europe, surrounds the south of the Middle East (except Turkey), then runs below Kazakhstan and Russia before diving to avoid South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, along with Australia and New Zealand.” (source: RFI, September 2023). (2) UN-Habitat.
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