The BRICS group: Overview and recent expansion

What is the BRICS and who are the members?

‘The BRICs’ standing for Brazil, Russia, India and China was first used as a term in economic writing, but later developed into an intergovernmental organization created by those four countries, which held the first BRIC summit in 2009.

It was then expanded to include South Africa in 2010, becoming known as the BRICS.

Four further countries joined the group in 2024: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina and Saudi Arabia were both invited to join, Argentina later declined the invitation, and Saudi Arabia has yet to formally accept.

The expanded group is sometimes referred to as the ‘BRICS+’.

The BRICS+ represent around 45 percent of the world’s population and 35 percent of global GDP (based on purchasing power parity).

How does the BRICS work?

The BRICS is an informal grouping, it has no founding treaty, secretariat supporting it or headquarters. The Chair of the group, which rotates every year through the different members, manages the agenda and focus for that year, and organises the annual leaders’ summit which is the centrepiece of the BRICS’ efforts.

The BRICS founded a New Development Bank (NDB) in 2014, to provide developmental funds to countries, as a rival to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, of which the BRICS members are critical. The NDB is often assessed as one of the most significant achievements of the BRICS.

What do BRICS members have in common?

While BRICS members have diverse interests, and independent foreign policies, there are shared values and aims that they frequently refer to in joint statements including:

• Increasing their economic development
• Emphasising multilateralism and opposing non-UN-sanctions
• Advocating for global governance reform – particularly of the UN Security Council, and global financial institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF.

There has been a more recent emphasis on creating alternative global finance systems and in particular reducing reliance on the US dollar.

In 2023 the BRICS adopted new criteria for membership. While these contained a few specific requirements such as not having imposed non-UN sanctions on another member state and supporting reform of the UN Security Council, most of the criteria are flexible enough to mean that they don’t provide a meaningful filter for new applicants. The biggest bar to new entrants is a positive consensus among all existing members.

What was agreed at the 2024 Kazan summit?

The most significant outcome of the 2024 Kazan summit, hosted by Russia, was the agreement to create a new category of BRICS partner countries. 13 countries were reported to have been offered this status. There has been no official confirmation of the country’s offered this new relationship, but they were named in the press as Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

How will the recent expansion affect the BRICS?

Some analysts studying the expansion of the BRICS since 2023, have emphasised the significance of the size and influence of the BRICS+ arguing that it is “certain to expedite the rebalancing of global power away from the West”.

Others have stated that the already existing diversity of views among members on key issues has now increased further post-expansion, and this will make it even more difficult for the BRICS to take coordinated action. They also note significant tensions among original members China and India, as well as newer members like Ethiopia and Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia (though the latter has only been invited to join).

The inclusion of Iran in the 2023 expansion have led some observers to argue that Russia and China will have another ally to try and move the BRICS in the direction of becoming an ‘anti-West’ grouping.

Others have noted that existing members like India and Brazil want to continue having meaningful relations with the US, as do newer members like Ethiopia and Egypt. While the BRICS members want to challenge the global order that they see as “made by the West, for the West”, Stewart Patrick predicts rather than “a frontal assault on the existing global order, the ultimate impact of BRICS+ is likely to be more measured and incremental”.