This paper examines the fiscal federalism processes in four countries in the global south – viz., South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Nepal – focussing on their revenue and expenditure assignments and intergovernmental revenue sharing mechanisms. The significance of focussing on federations in global south is that the processes are still evolving in terms of “optimal concurrency” in the expenditure and revenue assignments; and “revenue sharing” norms. The common feature of all these federations is the vertical and horizontal fiscal imbalances emanating from the asymmetric revenue and expenditure assignments and in turn identifying and restating the role of intergovernmental fiscal transfers to arrive at economic convergence across jurisdictions.