Global South Mobility Initiative

The Global South Mobility Initiative (GSMI) is an independent think tank documenting how the world distributes the freedom to move.

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The right to cross borders is unequally allocated. A passport from one country opens 185 destinations; a passport from another opens 24. That gap is not an accident of geography or wealth: it is the product of history, diplomacy, and policy choices made by destination governments. GSMI exists to make those choices visible.​

 

Our first project is the Mobility Inequality Index, currently in development. Once launched, it will measure how fairly wealthy destination countries distribute mobility rights across nationalities, with particular attention to the treatment of Global South citizens relative to their Global North counterparts. It is not an index of openness. It is an index of consistency.

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GSMI is grounded in four commitments:

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1. Equity. We do not claim political neutrality. We are built on a normative commitment to the principle that no individual should be permanently disadvantaged in their access to opportunity because of their passport.

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2. Independence. We are not funded by, nor accountable to, any government or destination-country interest. Our work will be published openly and in full.

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3. Rigour. Every score, every indicator, and every dataset will be documented, replicable, and verifiable against published sources.

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4. Transparency. We will publish our methodology, our raw data, and our limitations. Where we cannot measure something rigorously, we will say so.

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GSMI was founded by Vedang Parmar in 2025 and is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. We engage with researchers, civil society organisations, and policy institutions across the Global South and North.

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For correspondence: vedang@globalsouthmobility.org