Who thinks the BRICS merely organize a yearly meeting among its heads of government is mistaken: Over the past years, Brazil, Russia, India and China (and since last year South Africa) have establish ties between a growing number of ministries, agencies and non-governmental organizations to consult on a regular basis.
One day before the leaders' summit on March 29, for example, the BRICS Trade and Industry Ministers and their delegations are set to meet for the first time - a practice that already exists within the IBSA framework, which includes India, Brazil and South Africa. A preparatory meeting on economic and trade issues (CGETI), attended by members of each country's trade ministries, starts in New Delhi tomorrow, seeking to provide recommendations on economic and trade cooperation, with a focus on value-added goods. The final declaration of the 2011 BRICS Summit in China included the creation of this contact group. Several members from the South African trade delegation sat in on the BRICS Academic Forum today.
During the track II meeting, creating common regulations and standards has been a major topic, which will inevitably create many more meetings between specialists from several agencies.
Stronger interaction and cooperation between governments is to be welcomed, as the BRICS countries suffer from mutual ignorance. Yet broadening the scope of the BRICS concept raises the question about the usefulness of IBSA, which focuses on cooperation regarding many low-key technical issues rather than geopolitical challenges. That may be precisely the goal of China, which is excluded from the IBSA alliance. South Africa's inclusion into the BRICS group, a unilateral decision taken in China, was precisely meant to weaken the IBSA brand - at the same time, South Africa's inclusion has undoubtely strengthened the BRICS.
Yet IBSA continues to matter - on issues such as human rights, civil society and accountability, having China in the room is unlikely to help much. Given China's continued activism to broaden the BRICS' focus, however, preserving IBSA may be a challenge.
Dear Prof. Oliver Stuenkel,
You’re right in noticing that BRICS is becoming a mere copy of IBSA in terms of structure and organizing activities. However this structure is not new and has already been present in other broader-based organizations like the Commonwealth group or the Asia-Europe meeting (in terms of governmental and non-governmental groups for instance).
However IBSA is not a cooperation ‘that focuses on low-key technical issues”: when you take a closer look at what these two “communities of interests” are taking stands on, you may notice that both BRICS and IBSA adress geopolitical issues: BRICS focuses more on economic and financial governance (statements regarding the eurocrisis, the reform of the IMF, the nomination of the new head of the WB, the discussions about a BRICS development bank) whereas IBSA focuses more on the reform of institutions and its normative implications (governance of the internet, middle east peace process, health diplomacy at the WHO, IBSA envoy to Syria – not “low-key” at all, IBSA Fund already financing more than 11 development projects in LDC’s).
Overall, the future will tell about the perennity of BRICS. In terms of organisation, it is already quite difficult for all the IBSA working groups to meet on a yearly basis….(distance,language..)This may worsen with the new BRICS WG’s. Business and economic ties are also easier with country-members sharing the same regulatory principles. This is also more the case with IBSA than BRICS. So , I think that “preserving BRICS” would be more of a challenge than the preservation of IBSA who is less “hype” but seems much more “functional”.
Oilver just as you have european union, european economic community, eurozone etc, brics, ibsa, basic and several other groupings will happen
The important point, which i hope we can make the western world understand is that brics is not an economic grouping, but is a multi dimensional power platform, knowledge, commercw, military, culture, in other words, as much as western media wants to pooh-pooh brics by inventing, civet, next 11 and all other fancy acronyms, jim o neil stumbled on something, that even he trying to gloss over, will not work any more, brics are here to stay