The BRICS and the Financing Mechanisms They Created: Progress and Shortcomings

Comprising an estimated total population of nearly 3.21 billion people, the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa constitute the world’s five major emerging economies and are a significant influence on global affairs.  

In 2012, the BRICS took the momentous decision to establish their own financing mechanisms, including a new monetary fund known as the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), and their own source of development financing, the New Development Bank (NDB). Nearly ten years on, what has been the effect of these new financing mechanisms, and where are shortcomings most pronounced? In a post-COVID-19 global economy, how can the BRICS financing mechanisms be expanded and what is the likely future of the BRICS as a cooperation mechanism? And is joint action by the five countries likely to remain an important feature of the international landscape in the decades to come? 

In his new book, “The BRICS and the Financing Mechanisms They Created: Progress and Shortcomings,“ Paulo Nogueira Batista, Jr assesses the progress and shortcomings of the BRICS financing mechanisms to date, finding that while the innovations still hold great promise, much remains to be done to fulfill the founders’ plans and intentions. 

Focusing on the intersection of economics, international relations and geopolitics, Nogueira Batista provides an assessment of the first 12 years of BRICS cooperation from 2008 to 2020, focusing on international financial governance issues and especially on the new financing mechanisms created by the BRICS, the BRICS monetary fund and the development bank. He demonstrates the common traits of the BRICS nations that led them to cooperate in the reform of the existing international financial architecture, especially the Group of 20 and the International Monetary Fund.

Nogueira Batista goes on to describe the difficult negotiations among the BRICS between 2012 and 2014. Some of these difficulties revealed the weaknesses that would lead the CRA and the NDB to make slow progress in the first five years of their existence, from 2015 to 2010. He additionally provides an overview of the strong points and weaknesses of the initial phase of these financing mechanisms. While they still hold promise, Nogueira Batista argues much remains to be done to make the BRICS financing mechanisms fulfill their founders’ plans and intentions. Ending with a brief discussion of the future of the BRICS as a cooperation mechanism, Nogueira Batista highlights how joint action by the five countries is likely to remain an important feature of the international landscape in the decades to come.

Written accessibly, the book is targeted at specialists but also at non-specialists interested in these areas of knowledge and changes in the international economic and financial landscape at the outset of the twenty-first century.