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Brazil’s consecutive G20, BRICS, and COP presidencies create a window to align South-South policy cooperation on trade, health, green, and digtial governance.
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The 17th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit in Brazil—scheduled for early July—is unprecedented for several reasons. Firstly, Brazil has had to condense a year’s worth of work into just six months due to its presidency of COP30 in the second quarter of the year. Secondly, Brazil’s presidency of BRICS immediately follows its presidency of the G20, creating a unique opportunity in history. This allows Brazil to foster consensus within BRICS to systematically advance its G20 achievements, such as health cooperation and global governance reform.
Brazil has had to condense a year’s worth of work into just six months due to its presidency of COP30 in the second quarter of the year
Under the theme— “Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More and Inclusive and Sustainable Governance”—Brazil has made efforts to stay on message rather than drown in rhetoric. It is committed to keeping its focus on growth and development. This has also been made possible due to the very narrow but legitimate sphere of cooperation that BRICS has been able to carve out despite severe geopolitical differences—economic development and issue-based cooperation—all driven by ‘common consensus’ – the underwriting principle of decision making in BRICS.
BRICS has thus far avoided the trap of becoming the keeper of the domestic imperatives of its members. This has resulted in only incremental and limited progress by BRICS on pressing issues concerning the Global South.
Foremost among these issues is that of trade facilitation, which is likely to find mention in the leader’s declaration. Brazil—with India and South Africa’s support—has been able to steer the conversation on trade cooperation through alternative payment mechanisms to a constructive path in terms of enabling digital payments and local currency payments. The Chair’s Statement from the Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs confirms that discussions are underway on enabling platforms for cross-border payments, and predictably, no discussion at all of a common currency—a spectre created by grandstanders. The impossibility of the latter within BRICS has long been evident and has been reinforced by the group’s recent expansion.
Vaccine self-sufficiency has been a long-standing objective of the BRICS and a linchpin issue when it comes to cooperation in the grouping.
Second is the discussion around Global Health Cooperation. Brazil has made it a point to address the global community’s failure in achieving the sustainable development goals, one issue at a time. During its G20 presidency, Brazil established the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. For its BRICS presidency, Brazil chose the issue of vaccine cooperation and “eliminating socially determined diseases” such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria, and other tropical diseases. The recentering of diseases like TB, which the global community has become mostly complacent about, is largely due to the expansion of BRICS. The fact that new members are still struggling to rid themselves of old diseases that have slid out of the public conscience is significant here. Sharing health technologies, where several BRICS members have a comparative advantage, is also part of this larger conversation. Vaccine self-sufficiency has been a long-standing objective of the BRICS and a linchpin issue when it comes to cooperation in the grouping. Each of the BRICS members has a designated Vaccine research and development (R&D) centre mandated to cooperate with its partners since the initiative was launched in 2018.
A key part of BRICS cooperation has become connectivity and supply chain resilience. Shocks from the pandemic and the West Asian crisis have underscored the need for alternative trade routes. They have also reiterated the importance of intra-African connectivity, given the continent stands as the next frontier of growth and development. African stability and growth have implications for the global economy as the growth centres of the noughties, such as China, start to slow down.
Investments in hard infrastructure and the means to galvanise them are likely an area of discussion for the leaders. It could be an issue that the group could carry forward.
. The need for stable and reliable supply chains for essential goods—even with shifting definitions of what ‘essential’ constitutes—is one felt by all growing economies, and the BRICS economies are no exception. New members and partners, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, are part of an increasingly prominent discussion on friend-shoring and supply chain shifts. The BRICS 2030 Economic Partnership Strategy clearly indicates a willingness to discuss new trade issues such as ‘digital governance’ and a focus on reducing trade costs within the bloc. The strategy also has specific language on infrastructure development, improving logistics and port connectivity, in addition to enhancing energy security and food security.
The BRICS 2030 Economic Partnership Strategy clearly indicates a willingness to discuss new trade issues such as ‘digital governance’ and a focus on reducing trade costs within the bloc.
Finally, the conversation around the digital economy and digital transformation is a core element of modern economic cooperation. It implicates issues of domestic industrialisation, supporting Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), and fostering cooperation in advanced manufacturing as BRICS members, new and old, go through transformations in their value chain participation.
From an Indian perspective, BRICS is an important dialogue platform as it can build a low-ambition but wide-ranging consensus on issues of growth and development. It lends legitimacy to challenges of the Global South without retracting from India’s participation and partnership with countries in the West. India’s continued commitment to a free and fair international trading system and continued calls for strengthening old multilateral institutions, even within BRICS is proof of this. This is also true of other members of BRICS, including new members, who are potentially attracted by the non-binding but consensus-building ability of the bloc.
Jhanvi Tripathi is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation
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Jhanvi Tripathi is an Associate Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation’s (ORF) Geoeconomics Programme. She served as the coordinator for the Think20 India secretariat during ...
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