In January 2024, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially announced its membership of BRICS, an international economic bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

With the BRICS forum, Ethiopia got a new platform for cooperating with member states on specialised issues like finance, technology and global governance matters, which also positively enhances trust among the members states; Ethiopia is due to benefit substantially over time, writes Dareskedar Taye, Lead Researcher at the Institute of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia

The creation of new financial mechanisms through BRICS is one of the most promising fields for the development of the association. In the final declaration of the BRICS countries after the 2023 Summit, financial policy was given quite a lot of attention. In particular, it was stated that the BRICS Payment Task Force (BPTF) needs to prepare a report on payment mechanisms, including those based on cross-border payment systems

Many countries are vying for admission to the BRICS economic group backed by China and Russia, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor

BRICS doubled its membership at the start of 2024, and faces huge tasks ahead: integrating its newest members, developing future admission criteria, deepening the institution's groundings, and most importantly, launching the mechanisms for bypassing the US dollar in international finance

Sammy Kotwani, says despite those challenges mentioned above, there are also many reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for BRICS+ and the Global South collaboration