By Yaroslav Lissovolik

Amid the tremendous challenges facing Cuba this year due to the intensification of the US-imposed blockade and fuel supply restrictions, there may be venues through which it could alleviate these pressures via gaining greater access to international markets across the Global South. In 2025 Cuba became a member of the BRICS partnership belt and in 2020 it obtained the status of an observer with the Eurasian Economic Union – the first country with such a status outside of Eurasia. Across regional integration arrangements Cuba is also a member of CELAC – a pancontinental platform that brings together the vast majority of the economies of Latin America. These regional arrangements may become crucial gateways to connecting Cuba’s economy to the broader international community, most notably across the Global South, via the BRICS+ formation (in case BRICS do create a platform for regional integration arrangements). Below I explore this and other venues of Cuba’s greater integration into the BRICS+ circle:

- The partnership belt of which Cuba is part of, should become an active and living part of the BRICS+ platform rather than a symbolic addendum to the BRICS core. This partnership is a major resource for the BRICS and the developing word that should not stand idle – it should devise and discuss its initiatives with the BRICS core, including in areas such as trade and investment. One possible track that Cuba could lead from within the partnership belt could be health care advances in technology, medicine, vaccines and medical treatment.

- NDB enlargement: the BRICS New Development Bank is slowly but surely expanding its ranks and Cuba needs to be part of that platform – one of the priority sectors for investment project financing could be sustainable energy and more specifically the installation of solar batteries that would reduce Cuba’s dependence on outside supplies of fuel.

- BRICS CRA enlargement: more BRICS economies, not only those pertaining to the BRICS core, but also partner economies such as Cuba, should become part of the arrangement and the facility itself should become fully operational. But apart from forming the pool of financial reserves such as the BRICS CRA, my sense is that given the volatility and shocks in the global economy, there may be a case within BRICS to form a fund for strategic reserves of key items that may be in shortage during pandemics and crises – starting from key medicines and vaccines (this is where Cuba may play a crucial role) to food and fuel supplies. Such a facility for BRICS strategic reserves should be seen as a natural progression in the organization’s capacity to deal with the ever persistent and sizeable global challenges. In fact, this would also be very much in line with international trends – ASEAN countries are actively pursuing the development of joint strategic energy reserves, including the proposed regional oil storage hub and the strengthening of the ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement (APSA)

- The BRICS platform for regional integration arrangements: rather than further attempting to expand the BRICS core with additional country members, the focus needs to shift to a different and a more inclusive paradigm – building a platform for the regional integration arrangements of the Global South. This would allow for not only for more members of the developing world to be embraced by the BRICS+ circle, but also for the trade cooperation to be launched across BRICS+, since increasingly the trade policies of developing economies are conducted through their respective regional integration arrangements as is the case with Mercosur and the Eurasian Economic Union. This pragmatic platform could bring together the likes of the Eurasian Economic Union, Mercosur, South African Customs Union, ASEAN, etc. with a focus on advancing trade and investment cooperation. It is worth noting that the Eurasian Economic Union already has memoranda of understanding with the likes of ASEAN and Mercosur, while Mercosur has a trade agreement with the South African Customs Union. There are hence already foundations for the formation of an alliance that is based not on individual economies, but whole regional blocs of the Global South.

With respect to Cuba, the platform for regional integration arrangements could also work through CELAC – the BRICS+ platform could bring together the three pan-continental formations such as CELAC, the African Continental Free Trade Area as well as SCO+ (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) from Asia. This platform could focus on global issues and the position of the Global South in international forums. The BRICS partnership belt, including Cuba, ASEAN economies as well as Kazakhstan and Belarus could work together with the BRICS core to elaborate and advance the possible modalities of such an arrangement for the BRICS+ “integration of integrations”. In the end, BRICS+ should aim to develop as a matter of priority the most precious resource of the developing world – its human capital. And this is precisely the area where Cuba made some of the most impressive progress despite incredible odds. It is in the areas of healthcare, science and education that Cuba not only achieved important advances, but also shared them with the rest of the global community – one of the examples being Cuba’s development and provision of the anti-Covid vaccine. And during this year’s centenary of Fidel Castro, his words that “we spend five times as much on schools than war” ring ever true still for policy-makers across the globe. The Cuban legacy to humanity of prioritizing human capital development through healthcare and education is yet to be fully revealed to the international community and the BRICS+ bloc may be one of the key platforms in this undertaking.

Yaroslav Lissovolik is a Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.