BRICS: 2026 and Beyond
By Anurag Awasthi
The NDB is augmented by the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which provides a framework for protection against global liquidity pressures. BRICS Pay, if it comes through as part of the larger framework, has the potential to serve as an alternative to the global SWIFT banking system.
India assumed the BRICS presidency at the dawn of 2026, taking over from Brazil for its fourth term. The grouping, which initially focused primarily on investment opportunities, has now transformed into a vibrant intergovernmental organisation that envisages a greater footprint through financial institutions, energy security and efforts to bridge the North-South divide. This edition focuses on the theme of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. The overall construct emphasises a humanity-first, people-centric approach and marks two decades of BRICS.
BRIC, as it initially began, comprised Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2009 and was expanded to BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa in 2010. Iran, Egypt, the UAE and Ethiopia have attended their first summit following the grouping’s diversification, with Saudi Arabia as an invited member. With Argentina and Algeria pulling out of the process and Turkey not being able to join the grouping, membership of this elite grouping hinges on the unanimous backing of all member states. The current diversification spans four continents and the Middle East, covering around 35 per cent of the world’s total area and nearly 50 per cent of the world’s population, and is powered by some of the world’s most robust economies, with long-standing political leadership in most member states.
Geopolitically, as Kaplan emphasises the positional significance of geography in The Revenge of Geography, he argues that while individuals can overcome the forces of fate, geography extends beyond maps and encompasses collective metrics of trade, natural resources, the environment, culture and many other aspects. In this context, this grouping is not merely robust, but tailor-made.
In terms of serving as a benign counterbalance to established systems, the aspects in focus include instruments and institutions for lending, single-currency trade, energy security, the security of critical waterways, climate change, cybersecurity, digital governance and many more.
In its present structure, a significant waypoint is the financial architecture of the grouping, with the establishment of the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral development bank with a primary focus on lending for infrastructure projects. With an authorised corpus of USD 100 billion, this represents a paradigm shift in global political and economic power dynamics, besides being one of the most visible institutional outcomes of the grouping.
The NDB is augmented by the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which provides a framework for protection against global liquidity pressures. BRICS Pay, if it comes through as part of the larger framework, has the potential to serve as an alternative to the global SWIFT banking system. In essence, the NDB apparently caters to long-term financial needs, while the CRA could mitigate short-term liquidity crises.
Interestingly, Aleksei Mozhin, the Russian Executive Director at the IMF, highlighted that the currencies of the founding five nations started with the letter ‘R’ – Rupee, Rouble, Renminbi, Real and Rand. The global trend towards de-dollarisation has been in the spotlight since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and the exclusion of Russia. While this has begun a trend towards intra-currency trade in Asia, the road towards a common digital currency in the future is neither very easy nor entirely far-fetched. There is, however, a viable alternative to “de-dollarisation” through the expansion of BRICS and the development of a common digital currency in the future.
With India and China at the vanguard of economic growth as the current second- and fourth-largest economies in the world, closely followed by Brazil in tenth place and Russia in eleventh, this grouping displays considerable economic prowess. With Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE and Iran being among the world’s top 10 oil-producing countries, energy security takes centre stage. From an overall perspective, there are sociometric challenges involving health, nutrition, education and poverty, as well as economic challenges such as high inflation, weak currencies and instability in some states and regimes.
Africa is a continent with tremendous potential. It is a repository of minerals and natural resources, with large swathes of land, which makes it the food-security cauldron of the globe. There is significant potential for infrastructure and telecommunications development, with as many as 16 countries being landlocked and having no access to ports. With Egypt being the second-largest economy in Africa and the Suez Canal operated by the state-controlled Suez Canal Authority, the country is economically and culturally very relevant. Ethiopia is one of the fastest-growing nonoil-dependent economies in Africa and the world. India has a large diaspora in Africa and the UAE, with established and globally known business houses in the telecommunications, banking, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, infrastructure and retail sectors.
The present scenario also makes a business case for the adoption of robust Indian Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), which has the potential to transform businesses, energise governance and deliver essential services. This, in turn, could foster innovation, enable interconnected market access and establish networks in various domains, including technology, healthcare and microfinance.
The West Asian conflict has put to the test the BRICS’ ability to function as a geopolitical grouping rather than merely as an economic forum. India is positioned centre stage, having strategic interests in maintaining relations with both Washington and Tehran. With both Iran and Russia being broadly hostile towards the US, this landscape becomes visibly more complex. The BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May 2026 could not muster a collective effort to issue a joint statement on the West Asian conflict, which is significant and cannot be viewed in isolation.
It would be incorrect to compare this grouping to other entities such as NATO, which was founded in 1949, has 29 members and was formed based on the principle of “Collective Defence”. Correspondingly, this group cannot be viewed as a counterbalance to the G7, which was established in 1973, as their visions and structures are different. With well-known West Asian rivalries such as those between Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE, and strategic competitors such as China and India sitting in the same bloc, the grouping represents greater resources and capabilities, coupled with more divergent interests. Nonetheless, the expansion of BRICS can be useful for promoting Global South cooperation, but not for creating a cohesive political or economic bloc that is, by itself, capable of challenging the present order.
There is a requirement for this forum to have a written constitutive treaty, a budgetary envelope and a permanent secretariat. India is a founding member and therefore possesses a unique stake in the forum’s development and financial norms as they evolve in an era of transient relationships and transactional geopolitics. While international forums provide impetus to mature systems and increased emphasis on dialogue and trade, they also provide greater elbow room for negotiations. With BRICS having a rather younger profile in a multialigned world, alongside the rise of tech giants and the ever-evolving nature of warfare and diplomacy, this forum needs to grow in stature. This growth must catapult it beyond its economic and demographic weight, giving it the poise to exert credible influence in conflict mitigation.
Anurag Awasthi is a veteran and CEO of Escape Velocity Mediaworks. He is a policy expert and columnist who writes extensively on critical technologies, security and geopolitics.
The Sunday Guardian