My grandfather deserved his Nobel Peace Prize – but the award has a representation problem.

For years, it appears this accolade has been funneled towards western causes, creating a deeper deficit between the global North and global South

Today marks the annual Nobel Prize award ceremony; a prestigious event honouring this year’s greatest thinkers, peacemakers, and creatives with a glitz and glam celebration in Stockholm. Almost 30 years ago, my grandfather Nelson Mandela attended the same awards, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending South Africa’s devastating apartheid.

I’m grateful and honoured that my grandfather won a Nobel Prize. But when I consider the west’s slow response to the global South’s plights, including how it took years for western leaders to respond to apartheid, I wonder: was he simply awarded the prize to make the Nobel committee look good?

Like many other aspects of modern life, the Nobel Prize has a representation problem. It has been 121 years since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901. But the vast majority of recipients originate from the global North, and only a handful are minorities, or women. Out of the 954 people who have won a Nobel Prize, only 6 per cent of them have been women. Worse still, although the first Black recipient was in 1950, only 16 Black people have won since, and no Black person has ever been awarded one of the medicine, physics, or chemistry awards.

Of course, this is a commentary on wider society itself, where minorities and women are often discouraged from Stem subjects due to a wide range of systemic issues: economic disparities, gender stereotypes, or simply because the field already lacks relatable role models.

And while the Nobel Prize may just be a symbolic snapshot of global inequalities, the reality is it has real-world consequences. Winners of the Nobel Prize are awarded money (to the tune of 10 million Swedish kronor, or roughly $900,000), but they are also given the prestige and leadership to continue shaping the future of their fields. Whether it be for matters of peace, chemistry, or literature – winning a Nobel Prize propels great thinkers and leaders into the spotlight, where they get to speak at events around the world, inspire like-minded people, and galvanise others to lend support to their cause.

For years, it appears this accolade has been funneled towards western causes, creating a deeper deficit between the global North and global South, who seem to find themselves at odds with just about every issue.

And it is not hard to see why. The world’s upcoming crises are occurring along various fault lines in the global South. Conflict, food shortages, climate change – those in the global South are set to be disproportionately affected yet are continuously overlooked. There are countless untapped and underfunded projects, inventions, and individuals from the global South who – with representation, or the right platform – could revolutionise the world.

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For example, Edna Adan Ismail was Somaliland’s first trained nurse-midwife who spent her entire life trying to end female genital mutilation (FGM). From the Middle East, Dr Mohammad Abdulkarim Al-Issa, who recently led the most senior Islamic delegation to Auschwitz and has dedicated his life to combatting antisemitism and holocaust denialism across the Muslim world. And finally, Abdul Sattar Edhi was a Pakistani humanitarian who kickstarted a nationwide welfare organisation – he was nominated for a Noble several times, but never won.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. In the years since MeToo and Black Lives Matter, the light has been incrementally shone on the Nobel Prize process. In the past few years, the committee has been urged to address representation gaps through solutions like quotas, or even revealing details of their secretive selective process and opening them up to scrutiny. Yet, to this day, officials seem resistant to change.

Nobel diversity is pivotal in expanding platforms to individuals who can shift the pulse and amplify solutions for the world’s most pressing emergencies. Ultimately, my grandfather deserved his prize. But his nomination should not feel, as it does to me, like a token to shield the committee from judgement and allow the cycle of Eurocentric powers to continue. Recognising individuals from the global South must be the norm, not the exception.

Ndileka Mandela is a writer, social activist, and the head of one of South Africa’s most prominent rural upliftment organisations, the Thembekile Mandela Foundation