Brics and Economic Development: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

BRICS shall die, metamorphose and thrive. It’s a way of rethinking the socio-economic fabric before, amid and beyond the COVID-19 crisis. BRICS as a partnership was not static from its inception by Jim O’Neil to date. Starting as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) the partnership incorporated South Africa in 2010 to form the BRICS. As the partnership it was mainly a political initiative that had little if any economic developmental project but it didn’t take long before the organisation metamorphosed into a relatively robust and ambitious economic challenger of the current world order, symbolised by the “competition” with the Breton wood institutions inter alia the World Bank and the International Monetary Funds (IMF). Just like a grain planted into the soil that needs to die and come out as a crop before growing to become a plant or a tree, BRICS must face it. The study predicts the death of BRICS and explains that it will either evolve into BRICS Plus or a totally different but more effective global organisation overpowering once for all the Breton wood institutions and ultimately changing the world order – could the COVID-19 crisis accelerate that process? Could the current health pandemic and global economic crisis that goes with it trigger the metamorphosis of the BRICS as we know it today? What if that becomes one of the effects of the much-anticipated new world order? Let’s wait and see. Using a variety of research conducted separately, this e-book discusses matters of economic substance from African perspective. it identifies the negative scores of the BRICS as a partnership as it is confronted with death and seeks to understand its rebirth, restructuring or re-engineering in the aftermath. The study further assesses the strengths of BRICS and advices how to capitalise on these for a steady economic growth going forward. It looks at economic issues affecting the BRICS or its member countries with focus on South Africa.