Hardly a multilateral meeting goes by without its attendees committing themselves to the promotion of peace and security across the globe. The Sixth BRICS Summit, hosted from 14-16 July in Brazil, was no exception.
After five years of introspection and institution building, the sixth BRICS summit offers an opportunity for the group to focus on its relations with the rest of the world. Relations with the Group of 7 (G-7) are particularly contentious. Russia’s exclusion from the G-8 following the crisis in Crimea has moved the BRICS to the centre stage in Russian foreign policy thinking, and risks pulling the group onto an opposition footing with the West.
The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) were brought together by their investment returns and growth potential, but for the group to act they must find some common purpose.
The emergence of the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) grouping coincided with the notion of an ‘Africa Rising’, a term coined following Africa’s growing economic prosperity.
In advance of the sixth annual BRICS Heads of State Summit, to be held in Fortaleza, Brazil from 14-16 July 2014, SAIIA has compiled an engaging range of new materials about the grouping’s past, present and future.
In advance of the 2014 the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) Summit, an update is now available for the highly popular online resource ‘BRICS and the New World Order: A Beginners Guide’, produced by SAIIA and CUTS International.
New research on the trade policies of each of the BRICS countries, using the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a frame of reference, is now available for the first time in English.
This study examines the value, intensity, complementarity, balance, and structure of South Africa’s trade with its partners in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) alliance.
2013 was a difficult year for the five BRICS countries. China and Brazil faced slowing growth, South Africa and India were hit by currency instability, and concern over Russia’s governance deepened (before recent events in the Ukraine pitched them into all-out crisis).
The ‘green economy’ has been around as a concept since the 1970s but gained relevance again in the wake of the global economic recession in 2009 as government leaders looked towards new economic opportunities through sustainable, equitable and resilient economic growth.
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