BRICS: você sabe o que é?

Five letters. An acronym which is still ful of mysteries for the population. Madam, do you know what is BRICS?

”BICS”? - BRICS? BRICS?

BRICS? I don’t know. Brics?

Have you ever heard of 'BRICS'? It is related to economics, something like that, but I don’t know how to answer that. I do not know .

It is something about countries, some organization. But I do not know what it is Brazil Russia India China and South Africa In fact, BRICS is a group name formed by emerging nations together they are responsible for 23% of the world gross domestic product, GDP that is comprised of the produced wealth The brics’ countries hold 40% of the planet’s population The BRICS are an informal association of countries They are countries that are characterized by having a large territorial extension a huge population and in the beginning, with very high growth rates and the perspective of fulfilling a role in a world that changed from the post cold war unipolarity to the world of the multipolarity of greater interests of diverse countries. The first BRICS summit took place in 2009, still without South Africa, which became part of the group two years later.

Time of world reorganization with a remarkable Brazilian presence. The role of Brazil was absolutely fundamental not only historically but throughout the period that the BRICS was developed In fact the idea, the name BRICS was the creation of an economist of Goldman Sachs, Jim O'Neill but he had simply joined the countries that were important that 20 years ago were the 'Whale Countries' compared to the Tigers It was Brazil that took the initiative even before the BRICS, to create groups that contributed to a multipolar world, say so that were not subject to one hegemony. One of these groups was the IBAS, which includes India, Brazil and South Africa.

And the global order has already counted on other organizations of established countries. The G8 brings together the 7 world’s most industrialized countries plus Russia. The G20 is broader and counts with representatives of the 19 most most important world economies plus the European Union.

Brazil is also part of the G20. So why was it necessary to create the BRICS? BRICS is unique because it is congregated around the idea of having greater influence on the part of the great emerging countries in the international business.

That's the big news. They are countries that have in common the fact of being very large but that until then they were very disarticulated among themselves. The group has an ambitious goal, to change the correlation of forces in the world.

Opposing to the global hegemony of the United States. BRICS, in fact, the grouping of these five countries, from the first moment, was not very well seen by the hegemonic powers, especially by the United States. It represents a new grouping of very different countries but somehow confronts the hegemony of the United States from the geopolitical point of view on the international scene.

So I think that from this point of view of contributing to the creation of a more multilateral world to dissolve the hegemonic politics of the United States a little, BRICS helps to change a little the international scene. But the impact on the power's play of the international economy is still limited. With Donald Trump's election in the United States, from the Republican Party, the questions about this scenario increase.

The BRICS’ challenges are many, especially the ones related to social advancements. The populations of the five nations comprising of the BRICS are diverse, have their own characteristics and distinct realities However there is much in common, especially the need of facing the poverty reduction. Poverty is about children and is about woman.

Statistics show this clearly. I would say the element of commonality is there. Another thing that is a big challenge for the BRICs, which is closely related to the poverty eradication strategy, has to do with education.

Education is the key element of the difficulty in eradicating poverty, the difficulty of social and economic inclusion. You see in various meetings of heads of State, meetings of the civil society, in the academy The eradication of poverty is to leave no one behind, They are always the first strategies, which is very interesting. Because it has almost become a default.

However, you don’t see effective articulation among these countries in a common strategy to address this issue. The preservation of the environment is also an urgency that has been neglected. To have an effective environmental agenda, these countries should begin with serious commitments, such as deforestation, effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, with established timelines, goals and objectives for the short, medium and long term.

that are measurable and verifiable, but there is none. In the real world, these countries don’t show collectively as a block nor individually an effective commitment to a social and environmental agenda. With limitations and obstacles, in seven years the group formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has gained a place on the world stage.

The greater the space, the greater the issues to be faced. The prominent role of Brazil in the group and the uncertainties as to how the country will effectively participate within the BRICS under the Temer government are subject of the next episode of the series. The opinions of the interviewees are the sole responsibility of the authors.

They do not necessarily reflect the institutional point of view of Actionaid or the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.