This study evaluates the state of Open Access (OA) scholarly publishing in Global South countries as of March 2025. It analyzes data from major sources including Scopus, BASE, DOAJ, OpenDOAR, ROARMAP, and re3data, comparing current trends with 2017 benchmarks. (1) Key findings: Underrepresentation & Concentration: Global South countries contribute 27% of Scopus-indexed publications, but only 8–11% of open access documents in BASE. The OA ecosystem is highly concentrated in a few countries—mainly Brazil, Indonesia, India, Turkey, China, and Iran. Open Access Journals (Gold Road): 41% of OA journals are from the Global South. However, 9 countries account for 82% of this output, with Indonesia and Brazil leading. Diamond OA models (free of APCs) dominate in Brazil and Turkey. Repositories (Green Road): Global South hosts 27% of OA repositories. Five countries account for over 50% of them. Institutional OA policies are mostly from Turkish institutions. Research Data Repositories: Only 9% of such repositories are based in Global South countries, with China and India responsible for nearly half. (2) Growth since 2017: OA Journals: +139% (3,685 → 8,825) Repositories: +105% (795 → 1,628) Data Repositories: +168% (113 → 303) Growth is significant but unequally distributed. The study identifies regional and income disparities: Latin America/Caribbean and East Asia/Pacific are leading regions. Upper middle-income countries dominate OA production, while low-income countries remain largely absent. (3) Challenges & opportunities: The Global South’s OA landscape is marked by fragmentation and geographical inequality. Despite promising growth in select countries, most Global South nations remain marginalized. Expanded support, infrastructure, and inclusive OA policies are needed to close the gap and foster broader global participation. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.57745/9OKWTP