In a world where geopolitical certainties are steadily eroding, the upcoming 17th BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a potent reminder that alternative visions of global governance are not only possible—they are increasingly imperative. Scheduled for 2025 under Brazil’s presidency, this summit is more than a ceremonial gathering of emerging economies; it is a crucible where the blueprint of a new world order is being forged.
The summit’s ambitious agenda reflects both the aspirations and anxieties of our time. Key pillars include developing a more efficient BRICS payment system to boost trade and investment, promoting inclusive and ethical governance of artificial intelligence (AI), advancing a climate agenda to recalibrate the politics of climate finance, deepening cooperation in public health, reforming the global multilateral system for peace, and enhancing institutional structure and cohesion. These are the building blocks in BRICS’ effort to push back against a global system that remains skewed in favor of a few.
Consider the ambition of a BRICS payment system. The dominance of the U.S. dollar in global transactions has long been a tool of leverage. Washington’s ability to unilaterally impose sanctions or freeze assets across continents is rooted in this monetary hegemony. The creation of a BRICS-centric mechanism—whether through a digital currency, a SWIFT alternative, or a multilateral clearinghouse—aims to dilute that dominance. It’s not an attack on the dollar but a hedge against the weaponization of finance.
The governance of artificial intelligence is another arena where norms are being written mostly by tech giants and regulators in the West, creating AI that is neither neutral nor borderless. Its biases can reinforce existing inequalities, with serious implications for the Global South. BRICS seeks to offer a counternarrative: AI governance that is inclusive, sovereign, and anchored in the developmental needs of emerging economies.
Brazil’s own Artificial Intelligence Plan, launched in 2021, emphasizes social development and inclusivity—concepts conspicuously absent in Silicon Valley’s discourse. BRICS members are establishing regional data centers to ensure digital sovereignty. The hope is that the Rio summit will solidify these initiatives into a coherent framework.
Climate finance remains a sore point for the Global South. Despite lofty pledges at successive international summits, funding from developed nations for green transition in developing countries continues to fall short. The BRICS climate agenda aims to change that. Rather than waiting for assistance, BRICS nations are investing in green infrastructure, backed by the New Development Bank (NDB) and bilateral arrangements.
The NDB has set a target for 40 percent of its approved financing between 2022 and 2026 to go toward climate change-related projects, while also integrating climate risk measures into project designs and tracking climate finance annually. The Chinese mainland has long worked to advance green development through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative, incorporating climate resilience into infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia and Africa. Countries like Indonesia are positioning themselves as renewable energy hubs, leveraging both financing and domestic innovation. These are acts of climate sovereignty.
The focus on public health recalls the bitter lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine inequity, supply chain bottlenecks, and health infrastructure gaps disproportionately affected the Global South. In response, BRICS nations are deepening cooperation on vaccine research, pharmaceutical production, and pandemic preparedness. India and South Africa are leading efforts to create a BRICS pharmaceutical consortium, while Brazil’s Fiocruz Institute plays a key role in tropical disease surveillance.
The message is clear: Whether in health or finance, climate or AI, BRICS seeks not to replace the global order but to rebalance it. That distinction is critical, especially in an age when every move away from Western orthodoxy is projected as defiance or discord. The enlargement of BRICS—with countries like Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates set to join in 2024—adds further momentum to this rebalancing.
Asia, home to key BRICS members like the Chinese mainland and India, is no longer merely the world’s factory. It is the crucible of connectivity, from high-speed railways linking Laos to Malaysia, to digital corridors stretching from Jakarta to Johannesburg. As infrastructure integrates and policies align, the notion of South-South cooperation is gaining concrete form.
To be sure, BRICS is not without contradictions. Border disputes, political rivalries, and diverging economic models persist. Yet it is precisely this diversity that makes the group’s cohesion noteworthy. In a world splintering into ideological silos, BRICS is advancing a model of pragmatic pluralism.
As Brazil prepares to host the summit in Rio, the question is not whether BRICS will dethrone the existing order. It is whether, in a time of fracturing trust and rising protectionism, it can offer something more durable: a vision of cooperation that is not conditional, and of progress that is not prescribed. That vision may still be under construction—but in Rio, at least, the scaffolding is visibly rising.
