What is the significance of Brics+ for your country?

Extracts from the Morning Star 19/11/24 - from an article by Jenny Clegg

'... Brics+, in its diversity, is an organisation of and within the global South. Essentially, it is a long-term project for a co-ordinated multipolarity. It serves as a forum for emerging economies to co-ordinate and secure their future development goals.

'It offers a platform for members to leverage their own rise, manoeuvring among existing and emerging poles, not least to diversify their sources of energy and minerals as wars threaten supply lines. Accommodating these multi-alignment strategies, Brics+ strength also lies in the flexibility to adjust to shifts in an uncertain international situation.

'Rather than elevating their own interests above others, members look to each other for stability in volatile times, learning to adjust to each other’s rise, finding ways to manage their competition and support each other’s development, despite the tensions between them, within the UN frame.

'The problem with the UN is that it just doesn’t seem possible to implement its agreements. This is not simply about the abuse of the veto among the five permanent members of the United Nations security council — the problem is rooted in the global imbalance of economic and political power underlying the UN frame.

'In this sense, by standing up for the right of countries to choose their own development path beyond the “one-size-fits-all” imposition and by expanding development opportunities through collaboration and co-operation, Brics+ are, bit by bit, rebuilding multilateralism on a fairer material basis.

'As it does so, also by expanding its dialogue to partners, Brics+ provides space for diverse voices across the non-Western world to share concerns and ambitions. The broadening of the Kazan agenda to cover new areas, such as AI, green development and biotechnology, opens up a wider debate about the future and the kind of multipolarity Brics+ and partners want.

'Through think tanks, study groups and increasing people-to-people exchange, Brics+ countries are getting to know each other better sans the lens of Western racist stereotypes. In this sense, Brics+ is a process shaping the multipolar pattern of a future not dominated by the West.

'Beyond the purview of the West, the Brics+ zone is developing mutual understanding so as to create new narratives of modernity drawn from a sharing of the various deep-rooted civilisations.

'The West has claimed for centuries to show to the rest their future. Brics+ holds the promise of change not so much by replacing the existing international order as by de-Westernising or decolonising it.

'… Now, as Donald Trump brings new international challenges, and with liberal internationalism beyond resuscitation, it is imperative for the left to look South, not least to Brics+ with its offer of a viable progressive project.'