Why African nations are keen to join the expanding Brics club

A number of countries on the continent are lining up to join the emerging global player, which many hope will rival Western-led groups including the G7 and G20

Currency and new members to the bloc will be top of the agenda at the next gathering of Brics leaders to be held in South Africa in August

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Published: 6:00am, 16 Jul 2023Updated: 1:01pm, 30 Aug 2023

When the Brics summit gets under way in South Africa next month, much of the international attention will be on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin, with an International Criminal Court warrant out for his arrest, will attend.

But for many African countries, the summit is an opportunity for something much bigger. Various African countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Nigeria, Sudan and Tunisia, have expressed interest in joining Brics, a group of emerging nations formed in 2009 comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

A number of economies in Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe are also angling to become members, including Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Iran, Mexico, Syria, Turkey and Venezuela. Last year, Argentina also said it had received China’s formal support for its bid to join Brics.

The bloc has become increasingly attractive as a new stage for diplomacy and development financing. Many countries, especially those in Africa, see it as an organisation that can challenge the dominant US and European-led global governance structures, according to observers.

With Brics members accounting for more than 40 per cent of the world’s population and around a quarter of the global gross domestic product (GDP), there is growing frustration over the West’s dominance of financial systems.

This was highlighted during an exchange at the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact, held in Paris in June, where leaders from the Global South voiced their concerns.

Addressing the summit Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said: “Some people get scared when I say that we need to create new currencies for trade … So this is a discussion that is on my agenda and, if it’s up to me, it’ll happen at the Brics meeting … we’ll need to get more African colleagues to participate.”

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