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BRICS offers members opportunities to have a say in global decisions: South Africa expert

"This expanded summit has transpired to us that it has the continued drive to allow members to seek economic autonomy," said Prof. Kwesi DLS Prah in a recent interview with GDToday, a historian based in the Department of History at the University of South Africa, as the 16th BRICS Summit was recently concluded in Kazan, Russia.

The summit marks the first year following the expansion of the organization. Starting from Jan. 1, 2024, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia became official members of BRICS. As the first summit following the BRICS expansion, the 16th BRICS Summit witnessed the arrival of the Greater BRICS cooperation era.

The Kazan Declaration was unveiled at the 16th BRICS Summit, emphasizing multilateralism, global development, and security.

BRICS represents the voice of de-dollarizationof global transactions among developing nations

At this summit, the hosting member, Russia, brought up the cross-border payment system among BRICS nations, which implicates a multilateral payment platform to accelerate local currency cooperation among BRICS members.

From the view of Prof. Kwesi, the BRICS payment system is vitally essential to strengthen the financial messaging and digitization of financial transactions and to create the capacity to exchange digital assets. The voice for founding a new payment system is coming louder and louder from the Global South.

"The financial system and the current architecture are stable, but have been, I use a strong word here, abused by certain powers to leverage economic strength," Kwesi noted.

By the word 'abuse,' he referred to the SWIFT system, which is currently integral to transactions, as an example. "And of late, it has been used to create sanctions or enforce sanctions on countries which are deemed to be unfavorable by the controlling states," he detailed. "And I say controlling states, there are the United States in particular, amongst others, EU, etc."

Accordingly, there has been a growing need for the Global South or the international community at large to balance this problem, according to Professor Kwesi, to mitigate this one-sided nature or one-sided level of control over global transactions.

"And the idea of creating a financial transaction system which is independent of the SWIFT system was important towards creating a multi-polar or, at least, a more favorable, stable financial transaction system," he commented.

South Africa has benefited tremendously from BRICS in technological exchange

In 2011, South Africa joined the ranks, transforming BRIC into BRICS, leading to a renaming of the grouping. BRICS has consistently embraced an open and inclusive stance, aiming to engage in dialogues with the broader international community.

"The fact is that South Africa has benefited from technological exchange over the past 10 years, specifically Huawei and South African technological development," said Professor Kwesi. "The energy sector has benefited tremendously."

From the other way around, as Kwesi pointed out, South Africa has been able to increase its trading capacity and its products to China. "I see more in the agricultural sector as a result of the BRICS agreements. So you've seen a large exchange of capital going both ways, which is always beneficial," he added.

BRICS offers members opportunities to have a say in global decisions

The 16th BRICS Summit also covers pressing issues, including world peace and stability, as well as the fight against terrorism and transnational crimes. Building a BRICS committed to peace is one of the visions put forward during the summit.

In addition to offering space for countries to negotiate their economic issues, Professor Kwesi also thinks that BRICS paves the way for settling political disputes.

"The Global South has always struggled to assert itself on the global stage for historically obvious reasons. But I think, going forward, what BRICS is now offering members and offering new members is the opportunity for them to have a say in global decisions on futures," he explained.

For him, the point is that BRICS is playing a greater role in global affairs. "And I think, for us, as South Africans or Africans in general, BRICS offers an alternative to other multilateral organizations and institutions which negate our voices," he said, "our important voices are for development and going forward."

Reporter | Jersey, Liz

Editor | Steven, Monica, James

Video | Ou Nanying

Poster | Jocelyn Cai


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