As the BRICS summit unfolds in New Delhi, the gathering offers an opportunity to look back at how the group took shape. From the pursuit of a multipolar world to the creation of a development bank and successive rounds of enlargement, its history explains both its growing influence and the difficulties of turning shared ambitions into collective action.
When the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China gathered for their first summit in June 2009, the Western financial system was emerging from its worst crisis in generations. Governments accustomed to advising developing countries on economic discipline had been forced to rescue their own banks.
For the four powers meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia, the crisis sharpened a longstanding argument: their growing economic importance deserved greater influence over the rules governing the world economy.
The grouping that became BRICS would establish a development bank and expand across four continents. Its political roots, however, lay in an earlier question: how could countries preserve their independence in a world dominated by one superpower?
The political foundations
In 1998, Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov proposed closer cooperation between Russia, India and China. After the Soviet collapse, Moscow was searching for a place in an international order overwhelmingly shaped by Washington. Primakov envisaged several centres of power capable of influencing that order.
His proposed triangle became an important political precursor to BRICS. But the grouping that followed drew on several diplomatic traditions.
India brought its commitment to strategic autonomy. China’s economic rise was increasing its international ambitions. Brazil, under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, sought greater influence for developing countries through closer cooperation among them.
Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill coined the acronym BRIC in 2001, but the governments supplied the political substance.
Their foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2006, marking the beginning of formal BRIC cooperation. The financial crisis two years later gave their demands for reform greater urgency.
The initial ambition was to redistribute influence within the existing system. Members pressed for a greater voice for emerging economies in the IMF and World Bank, where voting arrangements lagged behind shifts in economic weight.
South Africa’s admission, followed by its first summit in 2011, added the final letter and an African presence. BRICS could now make a broader claim to reflect the aspirations of the developing world.
From declarations to a bank
The decisive institutional step came in New Delhi in 2012, when leaders commissioned an examination of a development bank. Two years later, in Fortaleza, they signed the agreement establishing the New Development Bank. It opened in Shanghai in 2015.
Its purpose was practical: mobilising finance for infrastructure and sustainable development in countries with substantial investment needs. BRICS had acquired an institution capable of lending money as well as issuing declarations.
The bank’s mandate explicitly complemented existing development lenders. Nevertheless, its creation changed the political proposition. Members were demonstrating that they could build institutions alongside those whose governance they wanted reformed.
A separate Contingent Reserve Arrangement, also agreed in 2014, was designed to provide support against short term balance of payments pressures. Together, the initiatives gave the pursuit of greater financial autonomy an institutional foundation.
Establishing a lender was a concrete achievement. Replacing the financial order remained an altogether larger undertaking.
A larger group, a harder bargain
China’s promotion of “BRICS Plus” in 2017 widened engagement with other developing countries. The expansion agreed at Johannesburg in 2023 subsequently brought in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates in 2024, followed by Indonesia in January 2025.
Saudi Arabia was also invited. Its accession has been inconsistently described, although Saudi official reporting identified the kingdom as participating as a member in May 2026.
Enlargement increased BRICS’ reach while making agreement more demanding. An organisation operating by consensus must reconcile more national interests before it can act.
The same difficulty runs through its financial ambitions. Greater use of national currencies and improved payment arrangements could reduce transaction costs and dependence on external financial channels. But these initiatives do not amount to a common currency. Brazil’s presidency made that distinction explicit in 2025.
The practical question is how far members can make trade and finance work more effectively between them while retaining control over their own economic policies.
The limits of shared ambition
BRICS’ members want greater room for manoeuvre, but they differ over how to obtain it. India and China remain strategic competitors. Russia’s confrontation with the West creates priorities that Brazil does not necessarily share.
These differences explain both the grouping’s flexibility and its limitations. Members can cooperate without accepting a common foreign policy. They can also obstruct initiatives that threaten their individual interests.
BRICS has become a durable negotiating platform and an institution builder. It cannot claim to speak for every developing country, or turn its members’ combined economic weight automatically into political power.
That is the historical backdrop to the gathering in New Delhi. The demand for greater influence has survived changes of government, economic crises and disputes among members. The test now is whether an enlarged BRICS can deliver enough practical benefits to sustain that common purpose.