How are the BRICS Sherpas and Sub-Sherpas shaping the 21st century in New Delhi?

In New Delhi, the BRICS countries took a historic step toward a new world order. India, China, Russia, Brazil, Iran, Ethiopia, and, for the first time, Belarus aligned their priorities around an agenda that includes sustainability, innovation, and environmental transition.

From solid foundations to strategic engineering (2014-2026)

The New Delhi meeting is part of a coherent historical trajectory, initiated with the creation of the New Development Bank on July 15, 2014, at the sixth BRICS summit in Fortaleza. With an authorized capital of $100 billion and complemented by the Contingent Reserve Agreement, this institution embodied the BRICS’ commitment to actively contribute to global financial stability. Twelve years later, this vision has become a de facto cornerstone of diversifying development finance instruments. This truly represents a demonstrated institutional maturity.

The expansion agreed upon at the Johannesburg Summit (August 22-24, 2023), with the effective integration on January 1, 2024, of new members including Iran and Ethiopia, has strengthened the group’s demographic, energy, and geoeconomic weight. By 2025, the expanded BRICS represented nearly 51% of the world’s population and more than a third of global GDP at purchasing power parity. This critical mass provides an exceptional structural basis for sustainable cooperation.

In New Delhi, Indian Sherpa Sudhakar Dalela structured the discussions around the theme: “Strengthening Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and the Ecological Transition.” This focus demonstrates a nuanced understanding of global transformations, namely digital transformation, the energy transition, food security, and climate adaptation. It reflects a constructive ambition, structured around tangible objectives rather than a logic of opposition. It also responds to a decade of shocks: the post-pandemic financial crisis (2020–2022), the freezing of nearly $300 billion of Russian assets in 2022, fragmentation of technology supply chains, and the acceleration of sovereigntist industrial policies in the United States (Inflation Reduction Act of 2022) and in Europe (REPowerEU plan of 2022).

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, echoing Xi Jinping’s strategic vision, emphasized the “high-quality development of expanded intra-BRICS cooperation.” This concept, enshrined in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), prioritizes innovation, industrial upgrading, and green technologies. It lends the BRICS project industrial and technological depth, confirming that it is a systemic structuring dynamic rather than a mere geopolitical reflex.

But the key element of the meeting stemmed from the proposals put forward by the Russian delegation, led by Sergei Ryabkov, which emphasized the importance of sovereign financial infrastructure: interconnection of payment systems, common reinsurance mechanisms, and a proposed BRICS grain exchange. Since the partial exclusion of Russian banks from the SWIFT system and the intensification of Western sanctions, Moscow has been advocating for an alternative financial infrastructure. These initiatives are part of a strategy to secure trade and stabilize markets, particularly in a global context marked by geopolitical shocks and supply disruptions since 2022.

The increased use of local currency settlements – already dominant in Sino-Russian trade since 2023 – demonstrates that the BRICS are moving forward on pragmatic and measurable foundations. This is not a radical break but rather intelligent diversification, fostering the resilience of the international system and gradually strengthening the group’s collective autonomy.

Towards a renewed multilateralism or a rising pluripolarity (2023-2026)?

Ethiopia’s active participation clearly illustrates the inclusive and African dimension of the project. Addis Ababa, home to the African Union, symbolizes a bridge between continents. During Narendra Modi’s official visit on December 16, 2025, several memoranda of understanding were signed, strengthening the strategic India-Ethiopia partnership in the areas of trade, agriculture, digital infrastructure, and multilateral cooperation.

The discussions held in New Delhi regarding Ethiopia’s accession to the WTO are part of a broader framework. This framework aims to leverage the BRICS as a tool for competitive integration into the global economy, rather than as an isolationist alternative. This constructive approach challenges the simplistic analysis of an “anti-Western bloc” and reveals a systemic influence strategy. Consequently, it strengthens the group’s credibility with emerging economies and developing countries.

The unprecedented participation of Belarus, represented by Ambassador Mikhail Kasko and carrying a message from President Alexander Lukashenko, underscores the growing appeal of the format. Minsk’s expressed interest in joining the New Development Bank confirms that the institution is perceived as a credible lever for financing development and technological innovation. This request comes in a context of strengthened Western sanctions since 2020, making the BRICS a strategic diversification platform for economies under pressure, precisely from the Western world.

Iran’s integration further strengthens the group’s energy dimension. This dimension is crucial, given that the expanded BRICS now control a significant share of global hydrocarbon reserves. Combined with the agricultural capabilities of Brazil and Russia, it paves the way for strategic coordination on global food and energy security, especially since these countries are among the world’s leading exporters of wheat and agricultural products. In a world marked by the 2022-2023 grain crisis linked to the conflict in Ukraine – demonstrating the vulnerability of markets dependent on a limited number of logistics hubs – and post-pandemic energy tensions, this stabilizing capacity represents a major systemic asset.

Therefore, the BRICS are no longer defined solely by a discourse on the “Global South.” They are gradually structuring themselves through three structural advances: an alternative financial space (local currencies, payment infrastructures), an integrated productive space (agriculture, energy, green technologies), and a coordinated diplomatic space (reform of global governance, affirmation of a cooperative multilateralism centered on equity and international justice).

In doing so, the BRICS alliance is no longer content to exist on the margins of the system; it is helping to reshape its flows, connections, and centers of gravity, gradually influencing the various poles of a world order in flux. For the Western world, the challenge is not spectacular but cumulative. Hegemony is weakening less through collapse than through the gradual shift of decision-making centers, trade flows, and technological standards.

In any case, the meeting of the BRICS Sherpas and Sub-Sherpas in New Delhi was not spectacular – it was strategic. It consolidated achievements, harmonized priorities, and prepared the ground for an 18th summit with realistic and structured ambitions. It thus reinforced trajectories initiated in 2014, accelerated after 2022, and amplified by the 2024 enlargement.

The Western world remains trapped in its fear of otherness, while the BRICS dynamic is based not on confrontation, but on complementarity, diversification, and pragmatic cooperation. By strengthening their institutional mechanisms, expanding their geographic base, consolidating their demographic strength, and deepening their economic coordination, the BRICS are gradually asserting their role as a stabilizing pillar of a more balanced international order.

In New Delhi in February 2026, the BRICS demonstrated that they are no longer simply a grouping of emerging economies; they now embody one of the main vectors of animation and circulation of the multipolar world in construction.

Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University

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