Is BRICS the answer?

The wide consensus is that the old international order has failed to give developing countries anything approaching the influence their numbers, resources and economic importance warrant. One question placed on the agenda is whether BRICS+, with their summit next week in New Delhi, should become the champion – or even the political voice – of the Global South. While in our estimation, the answer should be no, we believe BRICS+ can be an important instrument of the Global South without becoming its leader – a distinction matters enormously for us in Guyana.
BRICS’ growing influence is welcome. Its challenge to the dominance of Western financial institutions, its creation of alternative sources of finance and its efforts to reduce dependence on the US dollar potentially give developing countries something they have often lacked – choice, which is precisely the point. But the Global South should not replace one set of powerful patrons with another since we in Guyana have been there before.
Small countries should never forget one thing about great-power politics – when elephants fight, it is usually the grass that gets trampled. We spent much of our post-independence history navigating this dilemma when during the Cold War, developing countries were routinely pressured to choose between competing power blocs. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was the developing world’s ideal: we are sovereign countries, not pawns on somebody else’s chessboard.
We have seen that a multipolar world does not automatically mean a more democratic one, and a world with several powerful centres can still leave small countries powerless if they are merely expected to choose which great power they wish to depend upon. BRICS, then, should be an opportunity – which Guyana should welcome – not a new headquarters for the Global South. Chinese and Indian markets, Brazilian cooperation and alternative sources of development finance can all serve Guyana’s interests.
But there is a crucial difference between South-South cooperation and South-South dependency, and we should not exchange one dependency for another. Our oil transformation makes this particularly important sense; we are no longer just a small Caribbean country that the great powers can overlook. We possess something everybody wants, and from each we can use what they provide – at the best price and with delivery.
And all of it applies equally to Caricom. The Caribbean’s interests must prioritise those issues that are germane to our reality – climate finance, debt, food security, trade, migration, energy, small-state sovereignty, and the law of the sea, etc. Our regional voice therefore needs greater collective leverage, not another great-power alignment, and that is where a revitalised Non-Aligned Movement could matter.
Not the NAM of ceremonial conferences and grand communiqués, but a modern coalition capable of coordinating developing-country positions at the United Nations, IMF, World Bank and WTO – and collectively pressing for debt relief, climate finance, technology transfer and greater representation in global institutions.
Non-alignment should not mean neutrality about everything but simply the freedom to decide what is best for us within our realities. Our foreign policy should therefore be guided by one simple principle – Guyana first – which is not indecision but sovereignty. That does not mean isolation, and it certainly does not mean that we cannot join alliances that further our interests – as we have done with the US vis-à-vis Venezuela.
The old international order is changing, and we are fortunate in having a Guyanese candidate to lead the largest multilateral global organisation – the UN. We should not only welcome a world in which developing countries have more choices but also help shape one to not become just a collection of competing spheres of dependency. BRICS can provide economic leverage; CARICOM can provide regional leverage; G77 can provide collective influence at the UN, while a revitalised Non-Aligned Movement can provide political cohesion.
The Global South should cooperate where our interests coincide, disagree where they do not, and decide for ourselves. For us in Guyana, sitting atop billions of barrels of oil, that is not diplomatic rhetoric but an insurance policy.