A BRICS primer: how big is BRICS really?

Its bigger than you think.

We know in general the five BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

BRICS has built up a supporting structure that is huge.  Filtering out from the Sherpas, which gather information and present proposals to the BRICS leaders, there is a large Friends of BRICS alliance that gather each time any BRICS meeting takes place.  Their discussions and proposals are as important as the 5 BRICS.

Here are the Friends that attended various meetings this year and you will see more of them at the Summit in August.  These represent: Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon, Kazakhstan.  There are more, but they do not attend each and every meeting.  I do not see Belarus in this lineup as example.

Nalendi Pandor, FM, South Africa ended her last address to the friends of BRICS as follows:

“This meeting is one where BRIGS seeks cooperation and collaboration with you. We stand to learn from you how we can work in partnership towards delivering mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development, and inclusive multilateralism. ”

Friends of BRICS are becoming as cohesive and supportive as the 5 BRICS and new BRICS members will be selected from the Friends of BRICS which already is 3 times as numerous as the original 5 BRICS.

BRICS held a number of meetings this year, in the run-up to the Leaders meeting scheduled for August 2023.  One of these was quite recent, 24-25 July, and is an annual meeting of High Representatives in charge of security issues in BRICS countries.  So, how important was this to BRICS and Friends of BRICS?

Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev attended.  He noted that Moscow is ready for further development of cooperation between the five countries in all areas and assured that he highly appreciates the level and nature of the relations achieved within the framework of the partnership, which fully meets the interests of the five states.   Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, also participated.

Patrushev held a meeting in the “Friends of BRICS” format at the level of secretaries of the security councils and national security advisers.  So friends of BRICS are de facto fully part of the BRICS alliance.

If you look at the size of BRICS, the friends of BRICS grouping are of great importance and if BRICS holds a security meeting, the Friends hold a parallel meeting, and as you can see, they are addressed at the highest level with their information and proposals gathered by the Sherpas and added to the proposals that are prepared for the BRICS leaders meeting.   There is a full informational integration already active.

The dialog meetings already held this year, was youth, business, women in business, governance and multilateralism, and perhaps a few more that I missed or still going on.  I however did not see an economics stream as yet and expect this to be activated during the BRICS leader’s summit under the guidance of Dilma Rousseff.

Earlier in the year, the BRICS Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas did an Africa informational tour.

What are the Sherpas and the Sous-Sherpas?

They act as a secretariat.  They are the ones who gather information and actually carry the workload, just as Sherpas would do for mountaineers climbing Mt Everest, and that is where the descriptor came from.  They describe themselves as follows:

“Our task is to monitor on a daily basis the preparatory work of BRICS, especially the group’s summit to be held next August in South Africa under the presidency of President Cyril Ramaposa. The task of the Sherpas is to create all the conditions for the success of the summit,” said Ambassador-at-large for Asia and BRICS to the South African Foreign Ministry, South Africa’s BRICS Sherpa, Anil Sooklal.

https://tvbrics.com/en/news/first-brics-sherpa-meeting-of-the-year-opens-in-south-africa/

Anil Sooklal himself is no slouch.  He was the South African Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union.  Take a look at his Curriculum Vitae and his formal title is His Excellency. 

All BRICS Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas are highly qualified.

“The primary objective of the BRICS Sherpa meeting is to finalize the expansion document, which will be presented to the leaders of the bloc for consideration. During the meeting, member countries will collaborate on establishing guidelines, procedures, and criteria for the expansion of BRICS. The growing interest from various nations underscores the need to shape appropriate criteria for potential new members.”

The culture program runs far and wide and BRICS is presenting the music of Russian composers on Brazilian Radio today.  https://tvbrics.com/en/news/tv-brics-to-present-music-by-russian-composers-on-the-air-of-brazilian-radio/

As explained, the countries that are seeking admission to BRICS are generally active in the friends of BRICS and an active integration process is already taking place.  What if India or Brazil manages to slow-walk the process of growing BRICS by adding new members?  Actually, not much will change, because the Friends of BRICS are already integrating.  India and Brazil will lose friends from the very enthusiastic Friends gathering if they slow-walk.  Analysis of India’s comments alone, or trying to analyze Brazil’s comments alone does not take into consideration the whole of the BRICS.  With such analysis, invariably the conclusions are not quite what they should be.

Informational support is extensive.  A bunch of formal BRICS bloggers from the various BRICS countries write continuously  … https://tvbrics.com/en/bloggers-team/brics-on-the-way-to-expansion-anastasia-golyakova/

and podcasts are ample:  https://tvbrics.com/en/podcasts/

Wang Yi’s statement:
“BRICS countries have already become a very important platform for emerging markets and developing countries to seek strength through unity,” says China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, who it was announced Tuesday (Jul.25) will replace Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

“Our five countries have come from afar to gather here, to follow the strategic guidance of the five leaders, and discuss major issues related to our national security and international security, we are here to compare notes, to pour consensus , to discuss solutions and to make political preparations for the BRICS Summit next month,” the veteran diplomat said.

“Our meeting is very important and necessary. We need to bear in mind the historical path BRICS has traversed.”

BRICS may be a brand, but they are not a product.  They are a marathon, not a 100M speed race.  To understand BRICS, one has to understand the underlying processes of creating a vast new effective structure.  Resilience and built-in feedback mechanisms are already in place as a product of the structural organization.  This structure may be used as an erstwhile United Nations for the global majority, or the financial and secure economic home, and there is only one chance to get much of it right.