South Africa has just taken over from China President of the BRICS and this year will host the group’s annual summit. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa promised that more African countries would be invited to participate.
“We want to take this opportunity to advance the interests of our continent, and so we will have, through the BRICS summit, a process or a moment of awareness, where we will invite other African countries to come to be part of the BRICS, because we want the BRICS, in everything they do, to focus on helping the development of our continent”Mr. Ramaphosa said.
“Our continent has been plundered, ravaged and exploited by other continents and so we want to build solidarity within BRICS to move forward the interests, of course first of our own country, but also of the continent as a whole.”
Asked what form Africa’s defense might take, Mikatekiso Kubayi, a research fellow at the Institute for Global Dialogue, a Pretoria-based research body, said it would likely be to help African countries easier access to the global economy.
According to him, the BRICS are intended to allow the “voices of the marginalized to be truly heard” and Africa wants to improve the standard of living of its people and create jobs.
“The collective strength of the BRICS economy, technological capability, market size and other qualities that make BRICS a strong development partner for Africa, is what South Africa will seek to harness with BRICS partners. I think that’s what the president was referring to”Mr. Kubayi said.
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos of the South African Institute of International Affairs said trade would be a priority and the focus would be on harnessing the potential of african continental free trade area recently created.
She pointed out that China, the world‘s second-largest economy, is the continent’s largest trading partner.
According to her, the summit is also aimed at securing investment from external partners and boosting intracontinental trade.
“South Africa would like to participate in discussions on these issues with its other BRICS partners, to determine how to use the creation of a continental free trade area, not only to increase trade with the outside world, but more importantly , and this is the real objective of this initiative, to exchange, create goods on the continent that we will be able to exchange within it”she said.
Mrs. Sidiropoulos said that in addition to trying to advance the economy of developing countries, the BRICS also aim to reform the current multilateral system which “does not necessarily serve the interests of the South.”
At the latest BRICS summit, hosted virtually by Beijing, Ramaphosa lashed out at the West, saying that during the COVID-19 pandemic, rich nations had not joined to the “principles of solidarity and cooperation in equitable access to vaccines.”
In addition to being an economic force, the BRICS – which include three democracies but also the communist china and authoritarian Russia – are increasingly a political force positioning itself as an alternative to the liberal US-led world order.
Only Brazil voted against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations last year, while the other members abstained. South Africa, the continent’s first democracy, has been widely criticized for taking a neutral stance on the conflict.
And it looks like the BRICS may soon expand. Saudi Arabia is reportedly interested in joining the bloc, as are Iran, Algeria and Argentina.