🗺️ BRICS: Together Against Inequality

On December 19, 2023, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to Russia’s chairmanship of the BRICS in 2024, together with the presentation of a new Valdai Club report titled “Global Inequality: Will the BRICS Countries Succeed in ‘Steering’ the Global Economy?” The moderator was Oleg Barabanov, programme director of the Club.

💬 Co-author of the report Maria Apanovich, associate professor at the department of regional management and national policy at the Odintsovo branch of MGIMO University, briefly presented the main theses of the work. She pointed out that socio-economic inequality is caused by four groups of factors. This is inequality in the incomes earned in the white and shadow economies, inequality in access to social benefits, inequality in the territorial distribution of benefits, and gender inequality. “We were interested in how BRICS- or BRICS+ helps countries and how, thanks to this type of cooperation, it is possible to level out the socio-economic problems that currently exist in these countries,” Apanovich emphasized. According to her, closer cooperation within the commonwealth should allow countries to better use their strengths.

💬 Report co-author Nirmala Dorasamy, Professor at the Department of Public Management and Economics at the Durban University of Technology in South Africa, noted that the BRICS and BRICS+ countries have sufficient potential to ensure global influence, but even between these countries there is a noticeably large degree of inequality in human development index terms. Solving this problem would give the association more influence and sustainability. “Only then we will be able to speak from some unified point of view,” she believes. This requires a more structured, formal approach and consolidation of positions, despite differences.

💬 Sherif Ged, Chairman of the Egyptian Association of Alumni of Soviet Universities, spoke about his view of BRICS in Egypt, which will join the organisation on January 1, 2024. He noted that Egypt is actively developing relations in various fields with many BRICS countries, and primarily with Moscow. Russia is perceived in Egypt as a long-standing and reliable partner, ready for fair and equal interaction, for which Western countries are often not ready. Egyptians are confident that membership in BRICS will contribute to the development of the Egyptian economy, Ged said.

💬 Manoochehr Moradi, senior expert at the Iranian Institute of Political and International Studies and Iranian Ambassador to Ukraine (2018–2022), believes that BRICS plays an important role in solving many global problems and the expansion of the group is in the interests of the Global South. The BRICS countries have gained significant global weight and their GDP has exceeded that of the G7, he emphasized. He called reducing the importance of the dollar in the world an important issue, since the dollar in the hands of the United States is turning into a destructive instrument for the economies of other countries. Moradi understands the course towards Iran's accession to BRICS as the course towards development and an innovative approach chosen by the country.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/brics-together-against-inequality/

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🗺️ BRICS countries are among the largest in the world by territory. Moreover, 15 countries applied for BRICS membership.

Especially for the presentation of a new Valdai Club report “Global Inequality: Will the BRICS Countries Succeed in ‘Steering’ the Global Economy,” we created an infographic on BRICS.

#valdai_infogaphics #BRICS

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🇨🇩🇷🇼 On December 20, 2023, if nothing extraordinary happens, presidential elections will be held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Unfortunately, the presence of UN peacekeeping forces in itself entails a security threat. The example of Rwanda and other countries speaks for itself.

Today, the forces of the East African Community and the UN peacekeeping forces, in our opinion, should leave the DRC and give way to the forces of the Community of Southern African Countries, Valence Maniragena writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/rwandan-context-for-the-dr-congo-elections/

#Norms_and_Values #Africa #DRC #Rwanda #neocolonialism

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🗣 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣ The year 2023 has shown that Greater Eurasia and Asia are, so far, resistant to negative external influences, which have had the most dramatic consequences in Europe and the Middle East.

There are no opposing military-political alliances in Asia and Eurasia, and the so-called “geopolitical fault lines” only exist in the imagination of especially impressible readers of American newspapers. This is due to peculiarities of the political culture there, but also to the general trends of international life at the present stage.

1️⃣ First, despite the fact that this macroregion has its own experience of severe interstate confrontation, turning to violent conflict as the go-to means of achieving goals is not a central part of the foreign policy culture here.

In other words, when the peoples of the West take arms and see conflict as the solution to difficult situations, the peaceful resolution of disputes is preferable for Asia and Eurasia.

2️⃣ Second, the associations of states emerging in Asia and Eurasia are not aimed at achieving aggressive goals in relation to third countries. They are primarily aimed at implementing the development goals of their members and maintaining their internal stability. Therefore, now in Asia and Eurasia there are no unions created to ensure a privileged position for their members in relation to the rest of the macroregion.

3️⃣ Third, within the macroregion there are no relatively large states that would act as “agents” of extra-regional actors. The only countries that may be an exception in this sense are Japan and South Korea.

Asia and Eurasia remain a space of cooperation, not competition, and the leading regional powers are able to achieve terms that would be comparatively fair for their smaller partners, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/asia-and-eurasia-in-2023-shaping-a-new-internation/

#valdai_year2023 #Asia_and_Eurasia #Eurasia #Asia

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