Russia Leads BRICS+ After Collecting Chairmanship Baton From South Africa, Holds Summit In October 2024

As the World ushers in a new year, (2024), Russia will take up the baton of leadership of BRICS+, in what many observers see as a major turning point in world history, creating an event that may turn our World around under a newly emerging World order. According to analysts, 2024 will be a crucial turning point year for our World possibly with a newly emerging social, economic and political world order.

The BRICS officially expanded last August when the bloc had its annual conference in South Africa, adding five more members to its ranks. During the confab in August 2023, the bloc welcomed Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia to kick off the new year. The new five nations received initial invitations at the 2023 annual summit held in Johannesburg in August 2023.

Under the leadership of South Africa, the BRICS partnership and economic alliance has surged, creating a positive attraction to some African and Asian countries.

Two major events that emerged in South Africa’s hosted conference last August were the expansion of the bloc and the de-dollarisation which may see the bloc commencing their economic activities without the use of the dollar.

In BRIC+ political and economic plans, newly emerging countries will be a major focus of its expansion plans and supportive tendencies have been expressed already, almost 30 countries are seeking to join the bloc, seen as the last alternative to long years of imperial dominance of the World affairs by some powerful nations.

However, there is a lot to be done by the bloc in the attempts to solidify and cement the relationship between the bloc countries among which is the issue of the currency to be used which has to be sorted before the next summit, coming up in October 2024 year when Russia hosts the bloc in Kazan, a region of Russia. The summit also may see another 6 countries joining the alliance.

Responding to questions during a recently concluded mini-conference where the baton of BRICS+ leadership was officially handed to Russia by South Africa, by Prof. Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s BRICS Sherpa Ambassador-at-Large (Asia and BRICS) agreed that there are lots to be covered before the next summit, coming up in October 2024.

According to him, there are a lot of finetunes that need to be done before the next summit, assuring that no stone would be left unturned as the bloc strives hard to get its rhythms right.

Responding to an interview, Professor Sooklal said: “We need to champion a just and firm global order which would include the financial global architectures”,

He spoke further on the need to continually call for the reform of all financial organisations under the BRICS accord and stressed the need to augment multinational organisations’ activities to guarantee fair play within the BRICS bloc, interaction in claiming BRICS+ is a dynamic organisation in its entirety.

According to him, BRICS+ has tasked all financial ministers and all Central Bank Governors to investigate the question of the use of their local currency and report their findings and suggestions in the next summit. He also spoke about the member nations’ financial independence among the member nations as well as well as ensuring that interactions among member nations are strengthened.

The last meeting of BRICS Sherpas (a formation of a select group of leaders representing the BRICS bloc) was held early in December 2023. The role of a Sherpa is to organize meetings as a main communication link channel amongst the BRICS nations.

Report By Bodunrin John-Odus