Matheus Marques, Intern of the Russian National Committee on BRICS Research – special for InfoBRICS

BRICS has been promoting internal and external agreements to build partnerships that are beneficial for both parties involved. Nonetheless, BRICS is still far away from what Western aid is, except for the Chinese case. Moreover, BRICS aims to support the sustainable development of other countries as they see solidarity and equality in their international relations.

BRICS countries have emerged in the early 2000s as the future of the world economy. As Goldman Sach’s Jim O’Neill stated in 2001, BRICS economies were growing faster than G7 levels and they would consequently play key roles in the political, legal, and socioeconomic scenarios across the world.

In the early 2000s, BRICS saw the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Goals Campaign (2000-2015). However, most world countries were not taking the necessary efforts to mitigate the state of affairs, hence, the United Nations decided to implement new objectives for world development. That is how the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) were born with 17 goals and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030.

As new goals are supposed to be achieved, some inconsistencies lead to a situation where SDGs represent an unfeasible target for both developed and emerging economies, as many of the Millennium Goals were already ignored by them and the international community could have advanced much more.

Speaking of this, it is worth noting that BRICS countries have been progressing in the Agenda 2030 particularly in the field of decent work and economic growth (Brazil and Russia), industry, innovation and infrastructure (India and China), and peace, justice, and strong institutions (South Africa).

With the new Agenda 2030 of the Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, BRICS have also been showing that they are the main representatives of what is still the so-called developing world. BRICS have been building international partnerships, agreements, and projects to improve the living conditions of other countries. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa have also given foreign aid to enhance their cooperation efforts, especially in the global south.

Currently, this cooperation particularly seeks to implement sustainable development targeting key SDGs for developing nations. To exemplify, the End of Poverty (SDG 1), Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6), Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8), Industry Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9), Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10), Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16) and Partnership for Goals (SDG 17).

To meet the SDGs globally, BRICS countries have increased their participation in international initiatives focused on expanding their geopolitical power in other regions across the globe. This means that they have been financially supporting developing nations with their infrastructure, economic growth, sanitation, industry, energy sector, and new technologies. Nevertheless, it is still lacking a common approach towards BRICS and their partners' development and none of those countries have a mutual partnership that addresses a common development for all of them together.

Additionally, BRICS is closer to developing states as this group represents emerging economies and is more linked to the South-South cooperation even with Russia being a country with indicators related to the global north. Consequently, these countries are more likely to have relations with countries in development because of historical similarities between them as third-world economies.

For example, China has been growing its relations lending money to African countries. On the other hand, insofar as those countries are increasing their debt, many of them can not honor that debt in the long term. Such cooperation is not limited to African countries but goes to Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America, which is aimed to improve the logistics, communications, and energy sectors.

From another point of view, one of the main differences between the usual aid from developed nations (OECD group) and the BRICS is that this last one looks forward to building connections that are beneficial to both parties without interfering in the political or ideological sphere of the respective country. However, the “Western countries” are more likely to have conditions that are imposed on the least developing countries as a way of interfering in their political and ideological structures.

Plus, when considering the most important sources of international aid such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, they are historically sending more aid to both developing and developed countries although BRICS still does not have a similar significance and only started aid policies back to the 1950s.

Looking into the South-South relations, BRICS represents a very important case of developing nations that registered exponential economic growth and social progress for a more efficient sustainable development. However, it is contradictory to see that if within the BRICS, there is a huge gap of socioeconomic conditions and human development indicators. For instance, to promote sustainable development, it should be observed that all these countries could already have better indicators or even close indexes. In the case of Russia, the country scores 0.824, which is a very high HDI, but for India, the HDI is 0.645.

Then, how can BRICS promote international cooperation for SDGs and create initiatives within their alliance to have a better sustainable development that considers their needs and also their partners’? This question remains unsolved as the BRICS cooperation is also recent. Hence, the SDGs and the BRICS for their partners is a long road that is still unknown and sometimes, like in the case of China, neoimperialist.

Recognizing this is essential to reach a common agreement where BRICS countries can be new partners for world development regardless of the obstacles for the success of their partnerships. Besides that, if BRICS countries begin doing what the traditional donors do, the aim of South-South cooperation will be broken and this will represent a critical point for the development of BRICS allies.

BRICS shall be a new door for international development from infrastructure, educational, scientific, and economic cooperation rather than being the key to close new opportunities for other developing nations that aim to have better living conditions and promote sustainable development with decent economic growth and open to improving people’s lives. That is one of the reasons why BRICS was born.