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South Africa took up the chair of the BRICS group in 2023, in a geopolitical environment that had grown increasingly fragmented and contested. The pandemic and accompanying responses had already raised tensions between the Global North and South. Countries in the Global South accused their counterparts in the North of prioritizing their citizens rather than formulating a coordinated approach at the multilateral level. Vaccines were thus unevenly distributed and proposals by South Africa and India, which called for a waiver on intellectual property rights through the World Trade Organization (WTO), were largely ignored. To rub salt into the wound, countries in the Global North imposed unilateral travel bans that mostly led to an erosion of trust.
Philani Mthembu is Executive Director at the Institute for Global Dialogue, an independent foreign policy think tank based in Tshwane, South Africa.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa chaired various in-person BRICS-related engagements. This was significant and allowed the grouping to revive a degree of momentum towards BRICS cooperation. It was, however, also a year that tested South Africa’s diplomatic skills, as the country had to balance its relations with the BRICS countries and Western partners who had grown increasingly confrontational with two of the BRICS member states, namely, China and Russia.
The following research article outlines the key outcomes of the BRICS 2023 Summit while looking ahead to Russia’s chair of BRICS 2024, which promises to be an ambitious one given the West’s efforts to isolate Russia. It thus contextualizes the two respective summits in a broader geopolitical landscape undergoing important changes and greater fragmentation. It then highlights some of the most important agreements reached at the Johannesburg Summit. In analysing the Russian chair, attention is paid not only to the key priorities already outlined but also to efforts that Russia will probably make to reassure its BRICS partners that it is serious about minimising the negative effects of the war in Ukraine, especially on the Global South.