An attendant is stands next to South African, Indian, Russian, Brazilian and Chinese flags during a plenary session of BRICS Summit in Xiamen, China, in 2017. The 2024 BRICS Summit in Kazan presents a pivotal moment for the bloc to assert its influence in a rapidly changing global landscape. Tyrone Siu/Reuters
THE 2024 BRICS Summit kicks off in the Russian city of Kazan this week, confronted by a window of opportunity to assert the bloc’s footprint in the reconfiguration of the international world order that is in a downward spiral of disintegration.
The summit will take place from October 22–24 and will be chaired by the host country. After South Africa, the Russian Federation has taken over the rotational presidency of BRICS.
Of significance is the fact that the summit will be the first following the historic expansion of the Global South strategic bloc since the last such meeting was held in South Africa last year.
Speculation is rife about what resolutions the BRICS 2024 summit will adopt. The 10 full members of BRICS seem to have their work cut out.
Two global conflicts of similar significance are going on at the present juncture. They are the Ukraine war and the Middle East/Gaza genocide. Russia, host to the BRICS summit, is simultaneously embroiled in a US-led Western proxy war at whose centre is Ukraine.
At the heart of the Ukraine conflict is Russia’s concern about its national security in the wake of Nato’s limitless and provocative expansion to Moscow’s doorstep. Russian President Vladimir Putin regards Nato’s relentless encirclement of his nation as an existential threat.
Whereas the US-aligned West and G7 group have explicitly chosen the side of Washington in the conflict with Russia, the Global South has been fragmented in their expression of support for Russia.
In particular, BRICS members have commented as individuals on the two current global conflicts instead of speaking in unison – as a collective – as their counterparts do. BRICS is yet to issue an unequivocal joint communiqué on a conflict that involves a key member of the bloc, that is Russia.
Additionally, the bloc has not spoken collectively on the Middle East despite their apparent convergence of thought on the matter that has seen the deteriorating state of living standards in Gaza and Lebanon amidst the unabating bombardment and destruction of towns and neighbourhoods alike.
The desperately needed reform of the UN Security Council (UNSC) is also another pressing geopolitical matter on the table. Russia and China are both permanent members of the UNSC and possess a veto power.
The two superpowers are supportive of Africa’s permanent representation in the body by at least seats. However, the US, also a permanent member of the UNSC along with the UK and France, is opposed to the granting of veto power to Africa’s proposed permanent representatives.
The biggest elephant in the room for BRICS 2024 could be the already underway process of “de-dollarization”. The move away by BRICS members from trading in the US dollar between and among BRICS member states is regarded as one of the most revolutionary steps yet.
Inevitably, it will lead to a new, alternative global payment system that will reduce the power and influence of Washington in international trade. At the heart of this move is the BRICS Bank, also known as the New Development Bank. It has been established to counter the lending monopoly that is controlled by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, two of Washington’s key geopolitical levers of power.
The original members of BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – are hugely influential regional powerhouses and geopolitical players of significance in world affairs.
Following the 2023 expansion of the BRICS bloc, new members comprised Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina, which pulled out swiftly after a new pro-US regime of President Javier Gerardo Milei came to power in Buenos Aires last December.
Russian Presidential aide, Yuri Ushakov, who chairs the preparatory committee of the summit, shared Moscow’s priorities for the summit as follows: “The focus of Russia will be on promoting political and security, economic and financial, as well as cultural and humanitarian, among BRICS countries.”
The BRICS summit is one of the 250 events that Moscow has put together for this year alone, a remarkable feat for a nation that has faced a barrage of unprecedented Western economic sanctions over the past two years.
The refusal by the majority of Global South states to turn against Moscow at the behest of Washington is also one of the clearest examples of the rapidly-changing global power relations.
In addition, the limitless, all-weather bilateral ties between Moscow and Beijing are a conundrum of note to the West. China is the world’s second largest economy and developing at a blistering pace.
At the inaugural summit of the expanded BRICS in Kazan, therefore, the challenges will be as daunting as the opportunities are exciting.
The active involvement in BRICS of the oil-rich Gulf States is a game-changer. Following the BRICS expansion, the bloc now accounts for nearly half of the world's population. It also boasts the the mecca of oil production, arguably the world’s most precious commodity in the 21st century.
The power that BRICS wields is therefore enormous and can be an asset if used wisely. For instance, BRICS accounts for 36% of the global GDP than the G7 countries’ 30% “when adjusting for purchasing power parity”.
Furthermore, by 2022, the combined BRICS bloc GDP of more than $28.5 trillion stood slightly higher than that of the US. The value is equivalent to 28% of the global economy, making BRICS a truly powerful strategic bloc with a huge potential to put its stamp in the new international world order that is unfolding.
* Abbey Makoe is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Global South Media Network. The views expressed here are his own.