There’s been plenty of invective and grandiose ambitions at Vladimir Putin’s recent hosting of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. But amid all the noise, is BRICS the future?
Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs analyst who conceived the acronym for the then-emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China 23 years ago (the “S,” for South Africa, was added in 2010), doesn’t think so. In a Project Syndicate piece headlined “The Brics still don’t matter,” he wrote, “The Brics have done nothing to effect meaningful organisational or structural change within international institutions. In fact, they have done exactly the opposite.”
There’s been plenty of invective and grandiose ambitions at Vladimir Putin’s recent hosting of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. But amid all the noise, is BRICS the future?
Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs analyst who conceived the acronym for the then-emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China 23 years ago (the “S,” for South Africa, was added in 2010), doesn’t think so. In a Project Syndicate piece headlined “The Brics still don’t matter,” he wrote, “The Brics have done nothing to effect meaningful organisational or structural change within international institutions. In fact, they have done exactly the opposite.”
Amid fears that the United States is losing the global south, O’Neill argued, “The fact is that truly global challenges cannot be addressed through narrow groupings like the Brics (or the G7 for the matter).” If not, how?
One possibility is a G-20 reimagined as a more effective, more inclusive global economic governance forum. But is such an order possible, or will unmitigated great power rivalry produce a world increasingly divided into Cold War-style blocs, with a swathe of middle powers and less developed nations hedging in between? Many in the global south harbor resentment of U.S. and Western power—and of Western hypocrisy over issues such as the U.S. role in Gaza compared with that in Ukraine. But that doesn’t mean countries such as India or Brazil want to ditch the idea of a rules-based order altogether—especially if their own interests are better represented and can carry more weight.
The G-20 is an informal group representing some 85 percent of global GDP, 75 percent of world trade, and about two-thirds of the world’s population. It has all the ingredients of an inclusive forum that could better enfranchise middle powers and the global south. Reforms for increased resources and more equitable stakeholding that allow for shared power and responsibility in reshaped institutions would add legitimacy to eroding Bretton Woods institutions and reduce the governance deficit in key areas of economics and the global commons.
Since its creation in 1999 in response to the Asian financial crisis, the G-20 has occasionally helped build a consensus between powers by facilitating remedies to financial crises and to debt problems in developing nations. Key middle powers such as India and Brazil seek to use the G-20 to catalyze reform of the international financial system.
Yet despite growing calls for major reform of Bretton Woods institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as not fit for purpose, G-7 adaption to a post-hyperglobalization world has been halting, overpromising, and underdelivering, which has built disappointment and frustration in the global south. The G-7 nations, with 13 percent of the world’s population, have 59 percent of IMF and World Bank voting rights.
So it’s no surprise that the aspirations of much of the global south appear to be shifting toward BRICS+ (expanded this year to include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates) as an alternative to an order dominated by the United States and the G-7. Not coincidentally, China now has more trade with the global south than with the G-7 countries combined. That may be one reason why there is a growing queue of more than 40 countries interested in joining BRICS+. The group represents 45 percent of the world’s population and some 30 percent of its GDP. Its mission now is to turn quantity into quality.
Why all this buzz for a group that, to date, is more a trendy, Sino-centric performative display of multipolarity than a financial catalyst or problem-solver? The reasons are varied and complex: Some see BRICS as a hedge, a club boosting its leverage and/or pressure on the West; some are looking for financial help from BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB)and currency swaps; others want to avoid the ire of Beijing or to curry favor with it, because it’s a major creditor.
But China’s economy is larger than all the other BRICS+ countries combined, and it is widely viewed as a leader. Despite numerous failures, Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative has built up infrastructure and connectivity, with more than $1 trillion in investment and loans for more than 200 projects in 155 nations, a largesse that dwarfs the West’s. BRICS+ is awash in problems. The group has become more unwieldy as it has expanded, with a still-amorphous identity and plenty of internal tensions. Not least, the reality of multi-aligned democracies such as India, Brazil, and South Africa, seeking to lead the global south, pursue good relations with the United States, and reform current institutions, is at odds with Beijing’s agenda. Delhi, after elevating the G-20 summit with its elaborate hosting effort, also welcomed a 123-nation global south summit in August, without inviting China. Then there is the questionable status of China as a “developing country” when it is upper middle income ($12,500 per capita GDP) and the world’s largest creditor, holding 37 percent of developing nations’ debt.
Because Russia is a 20 percent owner, the NDB can’t service its own members since Putin invaded Ukraine, and sanctions have complicated access to capital markets. It also isn’t doing much de-dollarization—some two-thirds of its $33 billion project lending is in U.S. dollars.
BRICS+ failures suggest why actors such as India and Brazil, which hope to lead the global south, are also investing in the G-20. While the BRICS countries can posture and complain, a revitalized G-20, with all major creditors at the table, might better redress financial grievances and development deficits, though some will have different priorities.
The G-20 has had a modest impact in its core foci—global macroeconomic and financial coordination and developing-nation debt management. The G-20 played an instrumental role in coordinating the response to the 2008-09 financial crisis. As the danger mounted with the 2009 financial meltdown, it responded with the additional political gravity of a leaders summit.
G-20 finance ministers created the Financial Stability Board, adding international oversight and regulation; avoided competitive devaluations; and negotiated several trillion dollars in expanded IMF and multilateral development banks assets to inject liquidity into the system. This avoided financial collapse and catalyzed recovery.
But that was at a moment of urgent crisis, one preceding resurgent great power competition and with China playing an important cooperative role it may not take up in the future. At a time of intense rivalry among the two largest economic powers, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, national securitization of economic decisions, and fraying global institutions, can the West take action on less urgent but still vital issues such as alleviating least-developed-nation debt crowding out development and preparing for pandemics?
There are some promising signs. The G-20’s Common Framework in 2020 mobilized creditors to suspend loan repayments for less developed states during the COVID pandemic and to restructure their debt. In addition, the G-20, with key developing nations and middle powers participating, facilitated World Bank recapitalization and reformed IMF quotas and governance, albeit not meeting expectations of global south nations.
Yet all these G-20 efforts were short-term crisis measures to stave off developing-nation defaults, to keep the lights on. Neither the G-20, the G-7, nor BRICS has more than scratched the surface of the larger structural problems of debt in developing nations or the consequences of surging economic nationalism. IMF data shows 11 debt-distressed nations, 24 at high risk, and 25 at moderate risk. A World Bank report says a majority of the 75 lowest-income nations have yet to recover to pre-COVID levels. Many of these countries are so awash in debt that servicing it crowds out funding for health, education, and investment.
In order for the G-20 to rise to the occasion and offer real added value as a sort of economic security council, it needs to do three things: reform Bretton Woods institutions to better enfranchise the global south; limit its scope to economic coordination and issues of the global commons such as climate change and trade; and transform its own operation.
This will require adding substantial resources to fill the climate and development finance gap and to reverse the slide of the 75 most vulnerable states. The former is an easy choice; the latter, a tall order.
There is no dearth of vision or proposals. The Bridgetown Initiative crystallized ambitious global south demands for change. Reports by the Independent Experts Group commissioned by India as the 2023 G-20 Summit host, co-led by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and his Indian counterpart, N.K. Singh, outlined plans for necessary resources, partnerships with the private sector, and changes in the multilateral institutions. Those reports are more detailed than the Bridgetown Initiative, calling for some $3 trillion a year by 2030 to fund climate resilient infrastructure and development.
Both the IMF and the World Bank could expand their resources at minimal cost. The IMF can expand its Special Drawing Rights—an international interest-bearing asset based on a basket of major currencies—which would not impact the U.S. budget. It could also end rather than just reduce surcharges imposed on developing nations.
The World Bank has a very conservative debt-to-equity ratio. It can further loosen what is called its gearing ratio, as it did in October (freeing up $30 billion for new lending), without harming its credit rating. Such steps, along with a general capital increase, which the World Bank has not had since 2018, would also generate funds to lend the least developed nations. But the United States has opposed it, since paid-in capital would add to the U.S. budget.
Such an agenda, along with rebuilding a consensus on global trade and reforming the WTO, comprises the sorts of issues that a revitalized G-20 could have an impact on. There is a rare opportunity to build on India’s efforts, as the next three G-20 Summits will be chaired by Brazil (in mid-November), South Africa in 2025, and then the United States in 2026.
But no matter who sits in the White House that year, Washington will still embrace economic nationalism, be consumed with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and maintain its focus on containing China. The fear is that a rare opportunity to shape the future may be missed—even though it could bolster the credibility of U.S. leadership at only modest cost.
At the Kazan summit, Putin’s self-serving call for a BRICS payment system to counter the United States-led financial system elicited mostly yawns. But over time, absent a more farsighted foreign policy and a failure to revamp the global economic system to bridge the North-South gap, such BRICS dreams may have purchase.