Mikhail Petrakov / BRICS: Building a Better Future Together
Mikhail Petrakov / BRICS: Building a Better Future Together
Ambassador Mikhail Petrakov's article on the intermediate results of Russia's Presidency in the BRICS, its core values and prospects
To discuss the role of BRICS in today’s international affairs one needs to look at the backdrop against which it has developed. The world has recently become weakened and fragile with new threats and challenges arising by the day in numbers, some of them posing real danger to world security and well-being people and whole nations. Among these menaces a most urgent and destructive one is international terrorism. My country is no stranger to being targeted by terrorists. Russia has long been in the forefront of fight against terrorism and just recently we suffered a tragic loss of 224 innocent lives in the passenger plane crash over Sinai in Egypt which proved to be a terrorist attack. This together with other unimaginable acts of human cruelty by the extremists — in Paris, Beirut, Bamako, Nairobi — clearly shows that the threat of terrorism has indeed become a global security issue of huge proportions that disregards borders, restrictions and any unilateral measures. The only way to effectively counter terrorism is to lay aside differences and consolidate our efforts in a broad anti-terrorist coalition. The recent downing of a Russian Su-24 jet by Turkey in Syria and evidence of Turkey’s involvement in the oil trade with the Islamic State is an indicator of just how hard that task might be.
Although BRICS was initially conceived as a framework for expanding economic interaction and coordinating actions on the reform of the global governance institutions, it has long since outgrown this concept. Nowadays BRICS includes numerous avenues of cooperation, much beyond its original scope. Under the Russia’s Presidency in the association, security issues have become a priority for discussion and cooperation within BRICS, reflecting the world realia. Both at the Ufa Summit in July and following the informal meeting of the BRICS Leaders on the margins of the G20 Summit in November, our nations condemned terrorism and any kind of terrorist activity from whatever quarters it might come, as well as unilateral military interventions and economic sanctions, which violate international law. The support for the central role of the UN in coordinating international response to terrorism has been specifically underlined.
This year as a whole represents a huge leap forward for the BRICS in many regards and marks the final stage of its transformation from a dialogue forum to a full-scale mechanism of strategic and everyday interaction of the Member-States on topical economic and political matters. After all the joint hard work of the past few years our common vision for the BRICS as a crucial piece of the international mosaic finally starts coming together.
On 8-9 July Russia hosted the seventh BRICS Summit in Ufa, which turned out to be a tremendous success. Following BRICS leadership guidance and the implementation of Russia’s BRICS Presidency programme our nations managed to strengthen BRICS partnership in almost every aspect elevating it to a strategic level, achieve tangible results on a number of cooperation tracks, consolidate positions on key international issues and lay a solid foundation for future development.
As President Jacob Zuma wisely noted, «BRICS is a bloc of doers» meaning that the decisions by the BRICS leaders are brought to life scrupulously and in a timely fashion. We managed to implement over 70% of the Fortaleza Summit 2014 initiatives and commitments, and as BRICS leaders mentioned during their informal meeting on the margins of the recent G20 Summit in Antalya, we are already going full speed in bringing to life the decisions of the Ufa Summit 2015. This unprecedented success owes much to a number of key factors.
First, BRICS at its core is an association of like-minded nations who share common interests and goals. Second, the truly democratic process of consensus-based decision-making when interests of all parties are respected and no one’s agenda is imposed on others is what sets BRICS apart from other international organisations and allows us to move forward at an increasing pace.
It is no secret that these days the state of affairs in the world economy is far from ideal and many countries including the BRICS nations are experiencing difficulties. Some analysts go as far as to say that given some of the recent hardships the BRICS has lost its momentum. To that assumption one can answer with a simple fact: in the year 2000 the combined contribution of the BRICS nations to the world GDP was 11%, now it is already over 23% and the share continues to increase.
Among the outcomes of the 2015 Summit, the official launch of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserves Arrangement (CRA) stands high and deservedly so. It only took a year to cover the long route from signing the Fortaleza Agreements on NDB and CRA to establishing the said institutions and, notably the NDB African Regional Centre, with its headquarters to be located in Johannesburg. The Shanghai HQ has already opened its doors and the Bank’s Board has appointed all the executive officers: a prominent Indian banker Mr.K.V.Kamath was named the NDB’s President; four Vice-Presidents from other BRICS nations are hard at work. According to Mr. K.V.Kamath the NDB is nearly fully operational — it will start giving out loans as early as April next year.
These multilateral financial mechanisms are first and foremost designed to facilitate the BRICS-led financial agenda, i.e. channel the BRICS investments to infrastructure development. At the same time it is important to note though that these new BRICS institutions are to fill in the gaps in the existing global financial structures, they are meant to complement, rather than replace the World Bank and the IMF, albeit the BRICS nations share the opinion that the Bretton-Woods bodies are in dire need of a deep reform.
Another key milestone achieved this year is the adoption of the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership. It is designed to serve as the guidelines for expanded trade, enhanced cooperation and competitiveness based on the principle of complementarity of the BRICS economies. The Strategy pinpoints the areas with the most potential for further development: energy, manufacturing and minerals processing, agricultural cooperation, science, technology and innovation, financial cooperation, connectivity and ICT.
Russia’s BRICS Presidency has also brought forward an initiative to develop a roadmap for BRICS trade, economic and investment cooperation for the period until 2020. The Russian chapter of the proposed projects already includes 50 entries to be further elaborated, i.e. BRICS Energy Association, GLONASS navigation system and joint software development. The opportunities are vast and numerous.
The Ufa BRICS Summit also underlined the importance of political partnership and reaffirmed that our countries share approaches to major international issues. They emphasize the need for universal adherence to principles and rules of international law based on the UN Charter, and denounce «double standards». BRICS is both a symbol of a growing tendency towards a multipolar world and the main driver of this trend. The organisation is a brightest manifestation of the «network diplomacy», a harbinger of future international relations free of politico-military bloc mentality, of placing interests of some countries above others. BRICS is based on flexible participation of its Member-States in multilateral mechanisms aimed at finding effective solutions to common challenges.
Although Russia’s BRICS Presidency is coming to an end next February, with the July 2015 Ufa Summit being its high point, the work doesn’t stop here. We continue to build on this year’s achievements, continue to coordinate and compare notes on all levels including the highest possible, hence the recent informal meeting of the BRICS Heads of State and Government on the margins of the G20 Summit in Antalya in November.
With certainty in our ultimate success we proceed further in our endeavor to build a better and brighter future together. We are certain that the BRICS is setting up an example for the whole international community on how to cooperate in the XXI century. One can say that today we stand and work together not only for the benefit of the BRICS nations, but also as the Ufa Declaration quotes, «for the common well-being of humanity».
M. Petrakov
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of South Africa