Russia
Source: valdaiclub.com

The Development of a Shared BRICS Values Platform at the 2026 Summit

In setting the overall theme of a summit, each host country chooses the emphases that seem most important to it at the given moment. Nevertheless, a certain continuity can be traced in the overall themes, writes Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

The latest BRICS summit, the 18th, was held in India in September. It produced the BRICS New Delhi Declaration. The summit reaffirmed BRICS’s commitment to the fullest possible development of multilateral cooperation and partnership between the countries of the Global Non-West and South. Russia was represented at the summit by President Vladimir Putin (last year, at the BRICS summit in Brazil, the delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov). Of the BRICS member states, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were not represented at the highest level in India this time. Last year, China, Egypt, Iran, and the UAE were likewise not represented at the highest level. Of the BRICS partner states, Kazakhstan and Malaysia were represented at the highest level in India, while Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam were not. Last year in Brazil, the partners represented at the highest level were Bolivia, Cuba, Malaysia, and Nigeria.

Against the backdrop of an acute and contradictory geopolitical situation, the BRICS countries discussed the pressing problems of international relations. A year ago, the previous BRICS summit was held in Brazil; since then, the United States has launched a military operation against Iran, a BRICS member state. Another member, the UAE, has also found itself effectively drawn into the conflict against its will, with military strikes carried out on its territory. Furthermore, the US operation has had political as well as economic consequences, notably considerable instability on global energy markets and volatile, fluctuating prices. All of this has had a direct or indirect impact on many countries of the Global South. BRICS members and partners were therefore faced with the task of working out their own approaches to these new challenges in today’s turbulent world.

This has made the question of solidarity among the BRICS countries all the more pressing.
Against this background, it is interesting to compare the documents of the New Delhi summit with earlier BRICS declarations. We have previously analysed the BRICS values agenda in the relevant Valdai Club report, published in April 2025, and in an article on the outcome of last year’s BRICS summit in Brazil.
The overall theme of India’s BRICS chairmanship this year was “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.” A year ago in Brazil, the overall theme was worded as “Strengthening Global South Cooperation for a More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance.” And two years ago, at the Russian summit, it was “Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security.” Naturally, in setting the overall theme of a summit, each host country chooses the emphases that seem most important to it at the given moment. Nevertheless, a certain continuity can be traced in the overall themes, and, in our view, there is more of it between the 2025 and 2026 themes than between either of them and the 2024 theme.

Furthermore, the definition of the BRICS spirit in summit documents has shown clear semantic stability for four years running. In this regard, the 2026 New Delhi Declaration states: “We reaffirm our commitment to the BRICS spirit of mutual respect and understanding, sovereign equality, solidarity, democracy, openness, inclusiveness, collaboration and consensus.”

Let us recall that the term “BRICS spirit” first appeared in summit declarations under the Chinese chairmanship in 2017. Before then, there was no such term; instead, the principles and goals of BRICS were mentioned in various formulations. It should be noted that the word “spirit” is a hallmark of Chinese diplomacy, both in the drafting of summit declarations and in other international formats of non-Western countries hosted by China. Long before the “BRICS spirit” appeared, back in 2001, the Chinese side used the term “Shanghai spirit” in relation to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and it has been used ever since in SCO summit declarations with fair regularity, though not invariably, in various formulations, sometimes as the “Shanghai spirit” and sometimes simply as “spirit.”

In the BRICS format, the term “BRICS spirit,” first introduced under the Chinese chairmanship in 2017, then vanished for several years from the declarations of summits hosted by other member states. It returned to the text of the declaration under China’s next chairmanship, in 2022. Since then, however, the term has been retained in the preamble of every subsequent declaration: in South Africa in 2023, in Russia in 2024, in Brazil in 2025, and now in India. In addition, the need for commitment to the BRICS spirit was enshrined in the Guiding Principles, Standards, Criteria and Procedures for BRICS Membership Expansion, adopted at the summit in South Africa in 2023, in accordance with which candidates for new BRICS membership were selected.

At the same time, in the last three declarations, including the current one, the term “BRICS spirit” is
defined in identical wording, as quoted above, which allows us to speak of a semantic stability in the term’s content that has already taken shape. At the 2023 summit in South Africa, the wording was almost identical, except that the English original added the epithet “strengthened” to “collaboration.” We would also note a semantic nuance in the translation of BRICS declarations from English into Russian. Of the two broadly synonymous English terms, “cooperation” and “collaboration,” the former has always been rendered in Russian as sotrudnichestvo (“cooperation”). The latter, by contrast, has been translated into Russian in a variety of ways in different years and contexts. In the early years, it was most often rendered as sotrudnichestvo too, including in the 2023 declaration, in the very definition of the BRICS spirit. In 2024–2026, however, the same definition uses vzaimodeystviye (“interaction”).

In both of the earlier formulations under the Chinese chairmanship, the elements of the BRICS spirit differed slightly from the current one. Democracy was absent from the elements of the “BRICS spirit” in both 2017 and 2022; consensus was absent in 2017; collaboration was absent in 2022, while in 2017 “mutually beneficial cooperation” appeared in its place. In both 2017 and 2022, “equality” did not carry the epithet “sovereign.”

Once again, as in all previous years since the Russian chairmanship in 2015 (with the exception of Brazil’s in 2019), the overall character of relations between the BRICS countries was described as a strategic partnership. According to the text of the New Delhi Declaration, it is aimed at promoting peace, a more representative and fairer international order, a renewed and reformed multilateral system, sustainable development, and inclusive growth. The character of the strategic partnership was described in virtually the same words in last year’s declaration in Brazil. Here, too, we can see semantic stability. It has in fact become much clearer when the BRICS declarations of recent years are set against one another, in contrast to the declarations of BRICS’s first decade, when the basic wording on the foundations of its functioning changed constantly from year to year and from country to country.

In the context of BRICS expansion, one more passage from the preamble of the New Delhi Declaration is important: it recognises and underscores the valuable contribution that the BRICS partner states have made to the development of cooperation in this format. Last year, the Brazilian declaration merely welcomed the partners, who were then joining the dialogue for the first time. This time, however, the New Delhi Declaration also notes that the BRICS member states encourage the partners to take a more active part in the affairs of the association. In part, we think, this phrase can be explained by the fact that, for the second year running, as we noted above, far from all partners are attending BRICS summits at the highest level.

A year ago, at the previous BRICS summit in Brazil, three separate documents were adopted in addition to the general declaration: on the global governance of artificial intelligence, on climate finance, and on overcoming socially determined diseases. This time, there were no separate specialised statements at the summit. It should be noted generally that, unlike the G7 and, up to a point, the G20, adopting separate thematic statements alongside a general declaration is not all that common a practice in BRICS, and last year’s Brazilian example was more the exception than the rule. Nevertheless, the issues addressed in those individual statements last year have also, to one degree or another, been reflected in the final declaration this time.

On the whole, the BRICS summit marked an important stage in the further consolidation of the BRICS value platform and the semantic crystallisation of its basic principles within the framework of the BRICS spirit and strategic partnership. In an extremely acute international political situation, this was not easy to achieve, and so both the approval of the final declaration by all the countries and the continuity of its key provisions show that BRICS continues, at this stage, to develop successfully and to rise to the challenges of the modern world.

Russia
Source: valdaiclub.com

Trade within Greater Eurasia is measured in the hundreds of billions of US dollars, while cross-border venture capital deals are worth far less: tens of millions. Capital in the region remains national even where trade flows have long since become regional. No trustworthy infrastructure has been created in Greater Eurasia for transactions worth under five million dollars. Such deals are too small to be included on summit agendas, but they are precisely what result in a vast network of ties that cannot be created in a top-down manner.

The gap between trade and capital

Russian-Chinese trade turnover in 2025 amounted to $228.1 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 6.9%. This was the first decline in five years, caused primarily by falling energy prices. Even with this adjustment, the scale of the region’s trade connectivity is clear. Let's compare it with the scale of investment connectivity.

The Russian venture capital market was estimated to be worth $146–159 million in 2025, with the number of deals declining by a quarter. Capital hasn’t left the market entirely, but it has become concentrated in a smaller number of mature companies. In Central Asia, the dynamics are formally the opposite: $320 million for the year was the region's all-time high, and Kazakhstan secured its first tech unicorn. However, two deals accounted for 61% of this volume, and 85% of the investment came from local funds and government agencies.

The combined venture capital market between Russia and Central Asia is worth less than $500 million annually, representing approximately 0.2% of Russian-Chinese trade alone. Almost all of this capital crosses borders. The countries of the region have learned to trade with each other, but haven't learned to create joint ventures.

The objection is obvious: venture capital is quite limited compared to industrial and infrastructural investments. While this is true in terms of monetary scale, it is not in terms of diagnostic value. A venture deal is not secured by collateral, a government guarantee, or a long-term contract. It relies on trust in people and rules, and therefore its volumes reflect the state of regional connectivity more accurately than trade indicators.

Central Asia is a case in point. The primary investment focus there has become artificial intelligence, a sector where teams are not tied to sales geography. Moreover, capital is almost entirely local, with investments being made in Western and Middle Eastern jurisdictions.

What prevents capital from crossing borders?

Foreign trade relies on tools honed over decades: standard delivery terms and arbitration clauses understood by both parties. A venture capital deal requires something different: a shareholder agreement with options and liquidation preferences, as well as a court trusted by both parties. Historically, this role has been fulfilled by British common law and holding structures in European jurisdictions. In Greater Eurasia, such a framework is either unavailable or fraught with political risk, and no replacement has been created. When it comes to divesting, the situation is even worse: regional stock markets are disconnected, and there are virtually no active regional buyers for a mid-sized technology asset. Without a clear exit, anyone making a cross-border investment becomes a long-term stakeholder, something only state institutions can manage.

The cost of money is added. The high key rate in Russia makes risk-free deposits a direct competitor to venture capital investments, and capital rationally chooses deposits. This is an internal factor, but the effect is external: an investor who doesn't take risks at home is certainly not likely to take them abroad.

Lack of verifiable information

These barriers are removed by regulatory decisions. A barrier that isn't removed is the least discussed. An investor from Shenzhen can't evaluate a team from Tashkent, and vice versa. There's no common reputational infrastructure in the region: no universally recognised ratings and no institution to which initial verification can be delegated.

There's a calculus behind this shortage. The cost of a full project review depends only slightly on the deal size. For a $30 million investment, it's a fraction of a percent; for a $1 million investment, it becomes a significant double-digit figure. And in cross-border cases, document translation and local corporate history verification are added to the mix. This calculus forces small deals out of the cross-border market before the investor can even assess the project itself.

The consequences are evident in practice: deals are concluded where personal contacts already exist. Capital flows via diasporas and long-standing business connections, and this geography has little to do with the geography of economic feasibility. A region with a population of billions invests within itself as if it were composed of several dozen dense, barely intersecting circles.

What is decided at the institutional level

The last two years have seen significant institutional progress. The Tianjin Declaration formalised the decision to establish the SCO Development Bank, which had been under discussion for over a decade. India's 2026 BRICS presidency is accompanied with a slogan of strengthening economic resilience and innovation, and its proposals include new formats for cooperation between financial regulators.

All these tools are designed for large-ticket projects: infrastructure and projects with state participation. A startup seeking half a million to three million dollars is simply invisible to them, as the cost of vetting such a deal with a development bank exceeds that of the transaction itself. The bottom floor of the investment pyramid remains unfinished, and it is there that the connectivity is created. A small deal crossing borders creates a joint team and a precedent of trust, which can be used to build a deal an order of magnitude larger.

Observations from practice

The International Youth Acceleration Programmes, the BRICS Business Incubator and the SCO Business Incubator, serve primarily as a mechanism for creating a space of trust between startups, entrepreneurs, investors, and business communities. The 2023 BRICS Business Incubator in Omsk has resulted in the signing of fifteen memoranda on economic cooperation.

By the end of 2024–2025, more than 200 young entrepreneurs from ten SCO member states (Russia, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) had completed the SCO Business Incubator programme. Over 100 experts and mentors were involved. But the most telling figure is not the number of participants, but the number of connections established: over 500 business meetings in B2B and B2G formats and over 150 signed agreements on cooperation in trade and investment. Behind each agreement lies a specific trade supply, joint production, or the entry of a small company into the market of a neighbouring country. What the communiqué calls “strengthening ties” is measured in jobs in the real economy. Thus, the abstract “BRICS and the SCO market” is transformed into a list of specific counterparties with a verifiable track record.

It is also important to note that the results of the SCO Business Incubator programme’s activities for 2024–2025 were highly praised in the Tianjin Declaration of the SCO Heads of State Council. For the programme, the international award TOP 100 BRICS Entrepreneurs serves as a filter. The selection is conducted by national juries, meaning the initial review is conducted by those who understand the local context, and the results are recognised by participants from other countries. This is a viable substitute for the missing rating infrastructure: investors receive a stream of pre-verified projects without having to conduct a full review of each one themselves. Thanks to our strong business connections and the successful implementation of trade and investment projects in BRICS and SCO countries, the AGORA International Business Club was created, which promotes the interests of entrepreneurs by identifying international partners we’ve vetted and subsequently launching joint economic projects.

What can be done without big budgets?

The cheapest possible solution is a legal package. A standard shareholder agreement under the auspices of BRICS or SCO and an expedited arbitration procedure for transactions up to $10 million would remove the main legal barrier and cost incomparably less than creating any new institution.
The second step would be to change the role of development banks. They have no need to directly invest in startups; it's more productive for them to act as co-investors in national venture funds. The number of active funds in Central Asia is growing annually, the basis for such a mechanism already exists, and banks don't need expertise in selecting individual projects.

The least conflict-prone measure is mutual recognition of residency status: a resident of a tech park or accelerator in one country receives simplified visa and tax regimes in the other. This would also include the institutionalisation of business missions, which currently depend on the energy of individual organisers. Integrating them into the work of inter-governmental commissions with a fixed calendar would transform one-off trips into a reproducible mechanism.

The key is a common verification framework, where national operators verify projects using an agreed-upon methodology, the results are recognised by other participants, and investors from any country in the region gain access to a unified application flow. Prototypes of such a framework are already in operation, but they are not interconnected and therefore lack a network effect: a verification conducted in Tashkent means nothing to an investor in Mumbai. Connecting them requires agreed-upon methodology and mutual recognition of results. This work is carried out by lawyers and methodologists; it requires no capital investment at all, and the cost of cross-border transactions can be reduced so much that small transactions will return to circulation.

Conclusion

Connectivity is traditionally measured by kilometres of roads and trade volumes. These indicators describe a region's ability to transfer existing assets. Startups and venture capital measure the ability to co-create new things, and by this criterion, Greater Eurasia is at the beginning of its development: the region has capital, projects exist, but the infrastructure of trust between them across borders is virtually non-existent.

The proposed approach has a verifiable indicator: the number of cross-border transactions worth up to five million US dollars concluded within the region per year, broken down by country pairs. No one currently keeps such statistics. While this count alone won't generate a single transaction, it will show how many there actually are, and will shift the conversation about Eurasian connectivity from the realm of declarations to the realm of figures that can be compared year-on-year and appropriately addressed.

Russia
Source: www.mid.ru

Ladies and gentlemen,
Colleagues,
Friends,

It is a pleasure to address the CSTO, CIS and SCO Conference on Security in Central Asia and Afghanistan.

The conference provides an excellent opportunity to discuss ways of strengthening regional stability and to compare notes on mounting international security issues in this region. I believe the conference will be a success, because heads of international organisations and representatives from expert, academic, and research communities are participating in it. It is gratifying to know that all of us here share an understanding of the need for collective efforts if we want to overcome challenges and threats of our time.

We all share an interest in ensuring that Central Asia remains a region of peace and prosperity driven by broad-based and mutually beneficial cooperation among all Central Asian countries and their neighbours. For the Russian Federation, this region is of particular strategic importance. Geographical, historical, and humanitarian factors make it an area of Russia’s vital interests.

One way of safeguarding these interests is to maintain relations of equality and alliance, as well as strategic partnerships, with all Central Asian countries, and to assist them in ensuring peaceful and secure development, both bilaterally and through existing regional integration mechanisms.

Despite the well-known risks, we view the situation in Central Asia as stable and favourable for pursuing international cooperation. We greatly appreciate the contribution made by the leaders of the countries in the region to creating the necessary conditions for this. At the same time, it is important not to lose sight of the risks we are all aware of, which arise primarily from the actions of certain external players seeking to pursue their self-serving geopolitical interests, and disregarding the specific circumstances and interests of the friendly Central Asian nations.

Colleagues, no one, especially in this audience, needs to be convinced that the collective West has for many years been seeking to create flashpoints along our shared borders. Their role in deliberately creating the Ukraine crisis is well known. This has been achieved through NATO’s relentless eastward expansion towards Russia’s borders over many years, as well as through unreserved support for the openly neo-Nazi and Russophobic Kiev regime, which has once again revealed its true nature in recent days. Importantly, any country around the world, including our partners in Central Asia, could become victim to the West’s geopolitical expansion and the colour revolutions it orchestrates. Attempts of this kind have already been made against a number of our neighbours, but we managed to thwart them.
Developments in Afghanistan can still have an adverse impact on regional security, particularly so if unscrupulous external players exploit them to serve their own fleeting interests, which have nothing in common with those of the Central Asian countries and Russia. We are trying to remain realistic and are fully aware of the fact that overcoming the grim two decade-long legacy of inglorious occupation of Afghanistan by the United States and other NATO countries will take a long time.

We are likewise aware of the fact that, according to available information, a significant presence of terrorist and extremist groups, along with their training camps and strongholds, remains in Afghan areas bordering Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Members of these groups are attempting to infiltrate Central Asian countries under the guise of refugees and even tourists. In our assessment, which is shared by our intelligence services, the main threat comes from the Wilayat Khorasan group. This regional offshoot of the international terrorist organisation Islamic State openly seeks to undermine the Kabul government’s ability to maintain stability in that country. Concurrently, the radicals want to use Afghanistan as a launching pad for taking terrorist activity to Central Asia and Russia.

The terrorist “Internationale” - I’d be hard pressed to come up with a more fitting term - on the other side of the Panj River is manned by militants of Central Asian, North Caucasian, and Uyghur descent who have gained combat experience in armed operations in the Middle East and Africa. There is a clear presence of preachers of radical Islamist ideology, underground madrasas, and propaganda outlets operating in the media space, particularly on social media. Attempts are being made to smuggle weapons and drugs from Afghanistan into Central Asian countries and then into Russia.

To neutralise the above challenges, Russia and its regional partners must provide - and are effectively providing – a commensurate, comprehensive, and all-encompassing response. Each time, greater efforts are required of us, and we are working on this challenge in conjunction with all Central Asian countries and engaging our colleagues from Kabul as well.

We operate on the assumption that the Taliban government is a reality that must be reckoned with. A growing number of countries around the world realise this. On the political front, we are working to consolidate external support for the authorities in Kabul and for their efforts that objectively meet regional security interests.

Russia fully shares the vision of Afghanistan as an independent, united and peaceful state, free from war and drugs. We regard it as a significant achievement that the regular meeting of the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan, held in Moscow in early October this year, confirmed the refusal of participating countries to pursue a confrontational course towards Kabul. This was one of the key common conclusions. It is gratifying that a common position has prevailed on the need to integrate Afghanistan into regional economic processes. According to our information, corroborated by what we are hearing from colleagues in Kabul, the Taliban leadership is prepared for such a partnership.

We favour a more active use of other common formats of cooperation, in particular deepening cooperation within the Working Group on Afghanistan under the CSTO Council of Foreign Ministers, and resuming meetings of the SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group, which remains suspended.

Within the CSTO, we also attach particular importance to the implementation of the Targeted Interstate Programme to Strengthen the Tajik–Afghan Border. We are taking the necessary measures to ensure the timely supply of weapons, military equipment and technical means of border protection to our Tajik allies.
We appreciate the efforts of the Afghan authorities, who are waging a difficult and uncompromising fight against Wilayat Khorasan and other terrorist groups. We believe that Kabul’s policy of countering drug trafficking merits high praise. According to the relevant UN office, opiate production decreased by 90 percent in 2022. This is an impressive result.

We understand the difficulties the government faces in the field of socioeconomic development in the absence of national financial reserves, which were effectively stolen by our Western “colleagues” in this case as well. In this regard, Russia will continue to provide all possible economic and humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people. We welcome similar efforts by other countries neighbouring Afghanistan.

Of particular importance for the peaceful future of this country and the progressive development of Central Asia – given the current conditions of growing geopolitical tensions and the fragmentation of the global economy – is the use of the potential of our common associations: first and foremost, the CSTO, the CIS, the SCO and the EAEU. There is a need for a consistent unification of the capabilities of these regional structures relying on the complementarity in their plans for the division of labour and the use of the comparative advantages of each of these associations. I am confident that the remarks by the representatives of these organisations and the heads of the secretariats present here will include specific proposals and assessments in this regard.

The constructive logic of coupling integration processes and unifying potentials lies at the heart of President Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian initiatives. I refer, first and foremost, to the proposal to promote the natural formation of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and the call to create a new security architecture throughout the Eurasian continent.

Just yesterday, on the President’s instruction, I presented this initiative at the plenary session of the Seventh Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, held in Baku under the chairmanship of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. This is an initiative of the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, as you know, which has now been taken up by many states. Azerbaijan currently holds the chairmanship of the Conference and heads its Secretariat. Some have voiced support for keeping this process strictly Asian in scope. Work is now under way on a proposal from our Kazakh friends to transform the Conference into an international organisation; a small Secretariat is already in place.

As for the Asian coverage, or rather, the limitation of CICA activities to the Asian region, it seems to us that we need to be more ambitious, because Eurasia is a single continent, the largest, with rich natural resources and technologies, and home not to one but to several great thousand-year-old civilisations.
Unlike Africa and Latin America, Eurasia lacks a pan-continental structure of any kind. There are sub-regional organisations, and not all of them are exclusively continental by their nature. NATO is not about Eurasia, even if the alliance is now trying to posit that Eurasia in its entirety falls within its zone of responsibility. They are arguing that NATO is a defensive alliance with a mission to defend the territories of its member states, while pretending that the threats to these territories are currently coming from the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and so on. This is a serious conceptual twist which demonstrates NATO’s intention to impose its will far beyond its area of responsibility.

In this context, what is needed is a constructive response, and only countries within this region can offer it. The initiative put forward by President Vladimir Putin to establish a Greater Eurasian Partnership as a foundation for promoting ties between Eurasian countries and integration structures and use is as a framwork for building a collective security architecture.

This initiative is open to all countries, regional and subregional entities, as we have been stressing all the time, as long as they are located on the Eurasian continent. It is true that this is something that can be hard to imagine or fathom in today’s world, but I am nevertheless convinced that this objective makes a lot of sense from a conceptual point of view. This could emphasise that those who initiated this idea and the like-minded actors who share it are striving for open, inclusive development for the continent we share.

The SCO, EAEU, CSTO and ASEAN have already signed memoranda of understanding between their respective secretariats. There are now efforts underway to define ways in which they could share their responsibilities so as to remove any overlap and make better use of the resources this group of regional structures have at their disposal while demonstrating optimal performance.

It stands to reason that the efforts to carry out these initiatives will have a positive bearing on Central Asia and the entire region. If we move in this direction, this initiative will place Central Asian countries on the path to sustainable and predictable development as an integral and central part of the Eurasian continent in the era of multipolarity. These positive results will include facilitating the settlement of conflicts by addressing their root causes.

In September 2026, we held an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York together with our Belarusian friends and several Central Asian allies, as well as like-minded actors to launch the drafting of the Eurasian Charter for Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century. Initiated by Minsk, this will be an innovative document. Drafted as a framework instrument, it builds on specific ideas which will serve as a foundation for starting a conversation on drafting and stipulating a political, legal and conceptual framework for inter-state relations in promoting pan-continental security. Russia calls on all the interested parties to join this process. We have stressed many times that it is open to all European countries and associations.

The 4th Eurasian Security Conference in Minsk on November 3 and 4, 2026, will be an important step along this path. I took part in all the preceding conferences (1,2,3). This is a very useful platform, and it is great that it succeeded in attracting several countries which are not part of our integration structures in the previous years. I am referring to Serbia and Hungary. It is our hope that Europeans who represent the continent’s western part will also be able to send their representatives to the conference in Minsk this year.

It is obvious that with a solid economic foundation underpinning our shared security, it will only become stronger. In this sense, the Greater Eurasian Partnership is interested in building this foundation through joint infrastructure projects and developing Russia’s transport and logistics network. Efforts to develop the International North–South Transport Corridor could make a meaningful contribution to this combined effort by bringing together several of our Central Asian friends, while also strengthening ties with our Central Asian colleagues through Caspian cooperation mechanisms. We believe that ensuring that the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which rules out the military presence of extra-regional powers in the Caspian zone, enters into force as soon as possible and would be a major factor in ensuring security. In this sense, we proactively welcomed the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran has launched ratification procedures. I hope that they will be completed by the end this year as an important step towards promoting cooperation within the Caspian five nations.

As for specific interstate disputes in the region and the need to settle them, we believe in following the universal principle that regional issues require regional solutions. Our Central Asian friends have accumulated a lot of experience in finding ways to settle the lingering conflicts and preventing new crises, including those involving cross-border challenges. The signing of the Treaty of Khujand to delineate the territories of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2025 and the leaders’ declaration on the eternal friendship of these three countries offers a great example. As far as we know, the Russian Historical Society awarded the Leo Tolstoy Peace Prize, an award established a couple of years ago, for this achievement.

Russia views its foreign policy partners and allies as a major asset in its foreign policy and in terms of its development. We are committed to developing the Russia – Central Asia format. It has proved its worth along with similar five-plus structures bringing together Central Asia with many other external actors.

It is quite natural for Russia and Central Asia to work together in this format considering our geographical proximity, our historical affinity and intertwined economies. Of course, this format will act as an organic extension of the traditional regional cooperation mechanisms I have mentioned. I am referring to the CSTO, the EAEU, CIS and SCO. I have no doubt that discussing Central Asia matters in the broader context of the Eurasian agenda at your conference will be useful and will offer new insights and specific proposals. Let us be clear that we always welcome them.

I wish you every success and all the best.

Russia
Source: www.mid.ru

I extend my warmest greetings to the organisers, participants and guests of the Russian-Indian TIME Business Forum, which Kazan is hosting for the second time with its customary hospitality.

The multifaceted dialogue between Moscow and New Delhi, founded on the principles of sovereign equality, mutual respect and trust, is rightly characterised as a special and privileged strategic partnership. Trade, economic and technological cooperation continues to develop fruitfully, including in the fields of energy and space exploration. Scientific, educational, cultural and academic exchanges are being actively promoted. We are closely coordinating our efforts on the international stage, including within the UN, as well as in BRICS and the SCO. Next year , we will mark an important shared milestone – the 80th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Your forum is also called upon to contribute to the strengthening of practical Russian-Indian cooperation and the time-tested friendship between our peoples. You will discuss a wide range of pressing issues – from healthcare to investment ties.

I am convinced that the event will proceed in a constructive spirit, help to build bridges between the business communities of our two countries and facilitate the conclusion of mutually beneficial contracts.
I wish you every success in your endeavours and all the very best.

Russia
Source: www.mid.ru

On October 14, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to discuss urgent bilateral and international issues on the sidelines of the 7th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku.

The two foreign ministers spoke highly of the progress in advancing Russia-China comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction, as the two countries mark the 25th anniversary of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi compared notes on bilateral political dialogue, focusing on the implementation of agreements reached by the two countries’ leaders, as well as preparations for a series of upcoming engagements at the top level between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.

The two sides held an in-depth exchange of views on interaction within CICA and discussed ways to advance this forum.

They underscored the importance of strengthening Moscow-Beijing strategic coordination on the international stage, including at the UN and UN Security Council, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS, the Group of Twenty, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and other multilateral formats.

The ministers discussed relations with the United States and the developments involving the Ukraine and Iran crises as well.

Sergey Lavrov handed his Chinese counterpart the report, Goebbels’ Heirs: The Falsification of Events in Bucha and the Kiev Regime’s Bloody Staged Provocations, drafted by the International Public Tribunal, which is chaired by Maxim Grigoryev, a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber. The report covers fake claims about an alleged massacre in Bucha disseminated by the Kiev regime.

The talks were held in the spirit of trust and constructive engagement which is typical of Russia-China relations and confirmed close or overlapping positions of the two sides.

Russia
Source: www.mid.ru

Mr Minister,

My dear friend,

Colleagues, friends,

It is a great pleasure to see you on the sidelines of the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. We saw each other not long ago at Cholpon-Ata during a meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers.

The international situation, either in the Middle East, or elsewhere, has not improved since then. We have an excellent opportunity to exchange views on how Russia and China will continue to fulfil the tasks set by our leaders as we further develop the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation, the 25th anniversary of which we marked in July.

Our leaders maintain regular contacts and track the efforts to advance our multifaceted partnership and strategic interaction across all areas. President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping met twice this year, first time in May during the Russian leader’s official visit to China, and then in August on the sidelines of the meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State in Bishkek. Next month, President Putin will visit Shenzhen to take part in an APEC summit and, of course, he looks forward to another conversation with his counterpart and friend, Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Our economic interaction is making good strides. Our figures show that bilateral trade was up by 25 percent in the first eight months of this year and there is no doubt that this year will set another record for bilateral trade.

On the international stage, we have repeatedly seen that Moscow-Beijing strategic partnership plays an important stabilising role. Our positions on most regional, international, and global issues either overlap or are very close. This is reflected in our work at the UN and our participation, as permanent UNSC members, in the activities of this key body. The same applies, without a doubt, to the SCO, BRICS, APEC, the G20, our partnership with ASEAN, and many other platforms where our respective ministries must continue working with ever greater enthusiasm and effectiveness. The international situation makes it a necessity.

Once again, I am pleased to see you and to have this opportunity to continue our dialogue.

Russia
Source: www.mid.ru

On October 15, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in the 7th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku.

The event will address the further development of CICA, including its integration into the broader landscape of cross-platform cooperation across the Eurasian space.

Discussions are expected to cover a wide range of practical cooperation areas on the CICA agenda, including the spheres overseen by Russia: support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the assurance of international information security.

Participants will also exchange views on pressing international and regional issues.

CICA comprises 28 countries (Russia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Türkiye, the UAE, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam).
One of the summit’s expected outcomes is the accession of Laos to the Conference as a full member.

Observers (Belarus, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Turkmenistan, the League of Arab States, the International Organisation for Migration and the UN) and partner organisations (the Economic Cooperation Organisation, the SCO, the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime) have also been invited to the meeting.

The summit agenda will focus on ensuring the region’s sustainable development, strengthening connectivity across the broader continent, and combating new challenges and threats, including in the realm of international information security.

During the discussions with its partners, the Russian side will seek to bring to the fore the transformation of international relations towards a new, more just, multipolar world order. Russia aims to highlight its unwavering commitment to fostering positive, non-ideological cooperation – both among CICA member states and through multilateral organisations operating in Eurasia – to create a single, seamless space for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation.

The summit is expected to conclude with the adoption of a general policy declaration and a thematic document focused on improving occupational safety standards.

CICA is a multilateral dialogue platform for addressing pressing regional issues and deepening cooperation among member states to build confidence in the military-political, economic and humanitarian spheres, as well as in addressing new challenges and threats.

Summits are held every four years. The forum also hosts regular high-level meetings, sessions for senior officials and expert groups, and thematic events dedicated to implementing confidence-building measures. The foundational documents of CICA are the Declaration of Principles, adopted at the meeting of foreign ministers on September 14, 1999, and the Almaty Act, approved at the conclusion of the first CICA summit on June 4, 2002.

The CICA Chair is elected for a two-year term, with the possibility of mandate extension. Kazakhstan held this role from 1999 to 2010 and again from 2020 to 2024. Türkiye chaired the forum from 2010 to 2014, China from 2014 to 2018, and Tajikistan from 2018 to 2020. Azerbaijan has been at the helm of the organisation since 2024.

Specialised mechanisms operate within CICA, including the Finance Summit; the Business, Women’s and Youth councils; the Think Tank Forum; and the University Partnership Network.

The CICA Secretariat has signed memoranda of understanding with the SCO Secretariat, the EEC and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, as well as a cooperation protocol with the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS).

The working languages of CICA are Russian and English (documents are adopted in English).
Russia has been a participant in CICA since its inception. Russian proposals and projects within the organisation aim to foster equal and mutually beneficial cooperation focused on concrete, practical results.

Since 2007, Russia has served as the coordinator for the implementation of confidence-building measures in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises. We initiated the establishment of the CICA Business Council in 2015, and its most recent meeting took place in Baku in May 2025. Earlier this year, the organisation approved the concept and 2026–2027 action plan for the SME track prepared by the Russian side.

In 2021, support was given to Russia’s proposal to include cooperation in the field of international information security in the CICA Catalogue of Confidence-Building Measures. Russia serves as the coordinator for this area of cooperation. We regularly hold seminars on the sustainable development of the Internet, ensuring security in the use of ICTs, and countering their use for criminal purposes.

In 2023, the scope of the Russian-led meeting was expanded to include the topic of volunteering, with the adoption of a ministerial statement supporting this expression of civic responsibility. Following the December 2024 meeting of foreign ministers, volunteering issues were incorporated into the humanitarian section of the CICA Catalogue of Confidence-Building Measures.

In January 2025, the National CICA Research Centre was established at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Russia promotes the need to preserve historical memory within the CICA framework. At Moscow’s initiative, a ministerial statement marking the 80th anniversary of the Victory in World War II was approved in September 2025.

Malaysia
Source: www.thestar.com.my

BEIJING: China has reiterated its strong support for Malaysia’s bid to become a full BRICS member, says Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the backing was reaffirmed during his bilateral meeting with Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang here on Thursday (Oct 15).

Ahmad Zahid said China’s support was important as Malaysia sought backing from existing member countries to secure full membership in the economic bloc.

"Although President Xi Jinping has expressed his support, today’s discussions reiterated that China strongly supports Malaysia’s admission as a full member of BRICS," he told Malaysian media after the meeting.

Xi has expressed his full support for accelerating Malaysia’s accession as a full member of BRICS.
Ahmad Zahid said the meeting with Ding covered several areas of bilateral cooperation, including technology transfer, knowledge-sharing and financing for projects with significant economic benefits to Malaysia.

BRICS, established in 2009, currently comprises 11 countries, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Egypt. Malaysia became a partner country of the bloc early last year.

Malaysia-China trade rose 35.1% to RM456.68bil in the January-August period this year compared to the corresponding period last year.

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org

After the BRICS summit in September of 2026 the emphasis placed by India’s chairmanship on ensuring greater continuity in the bloc’s initiatives from one presidency to the other appears to have been broadly supported by observers and experts from across the Global South. The BRICS Continuity Mechanism advanced by Prime Minister Modi is predicated on a combination of a BRICS Troika mechanism (past, current and future presidency) as well as a secure digital repository to track decisions. The main rationale behind this proposal was the significant rise in the number of the BRICS core members, with further expansion put on hold due to the need to ensure greater integration of new members. A look, however, at the potential scenarios of the upcoming succession of BRICS presidencies suggests that there may be far more to the need for the BRICS Continuity Mechanism than readily meets the eye.

On the surface, the expansion in BRICS membership increases the urgency of continuity mechanisms in order to bring new members up to speed on the workings of the grouping and the various coordination mechanisms and procedures used in its operation. Another factor in this respect is that the duration of the policy cycles after the bloc’s expansion effectively increases nearly two-fold – if in the past China’s policy impulses such as the BRICS+ format took 5 years to make the full-circle before its re-launching in 2022, this policy lag now expands to 10 years, which raises the need for both greater ambition (strength of the initial policy impulse) as well as greater continuity and policy coordination in driving this policy impulse to the next BRICS cycle.

That in itself seems to be sufficient to warrant a full-fledged continuity mechanism to be instituted by BRICS, but there is more if one looks at the potential turns of how the core members’ chairmanships may follow each other. In particular, if the sequence of BRICS-5 presidencies ends in 2028 with South Africa and the next five presidencies come from the new members of the group’s core in alphabetical order, then a number of important continuity considerations arise. Firstly, the 2028 South African presidency will open a 3-year continuous presidential terms for 3 African members of the BRICS core – South Africa in 2028, Egypt in 2029 and Ethiopia in 2030. Furthermore, throughout the 2026-2033 period, the transition of annual presidencies will cover virtually all intra-BRICS bilateral relationships in need of extra care and development – this concerns the India-China relationship (passing the presidency from 2026 to 2027); the Egypt-Ethiopia relationship and the broader intra-Africa South Africa-Egypt-Ethiopia relationship (presidencies transferred in 2028-2030) and the Iran-UAE relationship (2032-2033).

Given these challenges and rising exigencies associated with policy continuity within BRICS, there may be a need to leverage additional tools and mechanisms that would sustain policy impulses from year to year. One such additional factor apart from the Troika mechanism and the secure digital repository may be the greater involvement of the regional integration arrangements in which BRICS economies are members. This may be particularly instrumental in ensuring greater cooperation and coherence among Africa’s BRICS members in 2028-2030 – the role of the African Union in working together with the three African economies, particularly in 2029, when a full-fledged BRICS African Troika composed of South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia is expected to take over, may prove to be particularly important.

Mediation of regional agendas across presidencies and a greater coordination among the regional partners in the BRICS core membership may be one of the key advantages of bringing regional integration blocs and regional organizations into the BRICS+ circle to facilitate greater policy continuity. Another factor is the creation of a back-up/parallel continuity track within BRICS+ at the level of regional organizations that advances the cooperative agenda despite the difficulties in policy continuity experienced at the country level of individual BRICS core members that hold the bloc’s chairmanship. Furthermore, as the BRICS agenda expands to include areas of economic cooperation that involve regional integration blocs (such as trade liberalization), their integration into BRICS+ policy continuity frameworks will become increasingly expedient.

Leveraging regionalism in reinforcing policy continuity needs to go beyond the expansion in the number of regional blocs participating in the BRICS+ summits. In this respect, a BRICS+ platform for regional arrangements would engender more connectivity across the main regions of the Global South, including in the coordination of individual country chairmanship successions. Together with the greater involvement of regional blocs and regional organizations, the BRICS Troika mechanism will create more scope for network effects and stronger bilateral/trilateral ties across the expanding BRICS bloc. Such a framework will in turn be conducive to a more flexible and dynamic BRICS formation, in which plurilateral accords are increasingly driving the initiatives and cooperative impulses across the entire BRICS+ platform.

In the end, the need for greater continuity in BRICS policies calls for a further expansion in the array of continuity instruments to include a greater role for regional blocs from the Global South in the BRICS+ decision-making/consensus-building. India’s presidency has delivered the necessary impulses of greater regional involvement during the past 2026 summit, with several regional integration blocs invited to participate in the BRICS+ summit. The challenge going forward will be to integrate the instrument of regionalism into the process of BRICS policy coordination, with the creation of a platform for regional blocs/regional organizations of the Global South becoming one of the key imperatives of the near-term evolution of the bloc.

Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org


During the 2026 BRICS Summit in New Delhi India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi advanced the initiative of a distress network for seafarers, highlighting the importance of Global South cooperation in the Blue Economy. According to India’s Prime Minister, the purpose of the initiative is to “connect maritime authorities and missions in the respective countries” and provide “assistance with distress alerts, medical assistance, information to families, and evacuation”[1]. The initiative launched by India may be instrumental in boosting maritime cooperation across BRICS+ economies and can be advanced by the bloc in key global organizations and forums.

One of the key reasons why the BRICS economies could play a crucial role in providing frameworks and platforms for maritime connectivity and distress/emergency assistance is the significant share of the bloc’s economies in the global employment of maritime workforce. In particular, India holds the second place in the world in terms of the total number of seafarers – according to the country’s Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, “India has emerged as the world’s second-largest supplier of seafarers, contributing 311,936 maritime professionals to the global shipping industry”[2].

Table 1: Estimated five largest seafarer supply countries 2026


Source: BIMCO/ICS Seafarer Workforce Report 2026, Country Questionnaire, 2026

Furthermore, according to the BIMCO-ICS Seafarer Workforce Report 2026, the top five countries in terms of seafarer supply are the Philippines, India, China, Russia and Indonesia – together they represent 56.25% of the global seafarer workforce supply. All of the top 5 seafarer supply economies are from the Global South and 4 out of 5 are from the BRICS core. The report estimates the global supply of seafarers at 2.57 million in 2026 and demand at 2.55 million, pointing to increasingly competitive conditions in the global market[3].

India’s rise in the rankings has been particularly impressive, with its share in the global supply of maritime workforce rising from 5.2% in 2015 (#5 in the global ranking) to 12.16% (#2 position) in 2026. In this respect, India is aiming to further increase its share in the global supply of maritime workforce to 20%, with the Blue Economy seen as an important driver of job creation. According to the Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways (MoPSW), Sarbananda Sonowal, “Mission 20% is our next national milestone… Our vision is clear, to ensure that one in every five seafarers serving aboard merchant ships anywhere in the world is an Indian, recognized globally for professionalism, competence and excellence”[4].

Apart from the BRICS platform, India further advanced this initiative within the United Nations, where together with Liberia it launched the Group of Friends on Safety and Security of Shipping and Seafarers (GoF on S4) on September 25, 2026, at the United Nations headquarters in New York during the 81st UN General Assembly. The inaugural ministerial was attended by representatives from 25 countries, including several BRICS economies such as Russia and Indonesia[5].

The initiative launched by India with respect to the safety of maritime connectivity may provide an important impulse to the broader economic cooperation among BRICS+ countries in the Blue Economy. In particular, India’s initiative could be expanded to cover cooperation on ecological/environmental monitoring of oceanic basins, logistical pathways and maritime connectivity agreements that raise the reliability and lower the costs of shipping goods across countries. Greater security in the maritime sphere would benefit the world economy through more secure supply chains and an environment conducive to expanding growth and employment in the Blue Economy.

The BRICS grouping could spearhead the scaling of such initiatives in the respective global forums and regional organizations, including the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), where India is the founding member and the current chair for the period of 2025-2027. Another possible venue is the Oceans 20/O20 engagement group of the G20, in which developing economies such as South Africa, Indonesia, India and Brazil have played a crucial role. In fact, if the O20 group expands its cooperation with regional oceanic platforms such as APEC and IORA, there could be scope for the BRICS to play a leading role in forging global maritime connectivity frameworks that exploit the greater uniformity and inter-connectedness of oceanic space compared to inland logistical networks.

In this respect, the BRICS potential role in building maritime economic cooperation is predicated not only on the significant share of seafarer’s global employment, but also the geographical presence of the core BRICS economies in all key oceanic basins of the world economy: Brazil in the Atlantic, Russia in the Arctic ocean, India in the Indian ocean, China in the Pacific, South Africa – a unique tri-oceanic economy with connection to the Atlantic, the Indian and the Southern oceans. As observed in our earlier publications, the majority of the PIERs economies – those that combine bi-oceanic and trans-continental qualities – are core BRICS economies (Egypt, Russia, Indonesia)[6].

In the end, there may be great significance in India’s BRICS initiative for the safety of seafarers as such cooperative undertakings may serve to open the possibilities of South-South and global coordination in the Blue Economy. While in the past decades relatively more emphasis tended to be placed on inland connectivity corridors, there may be a growing realization in the policy circles of the Global South about the immense possibilities harbored for trade (90% of global trade is via maritime corridors), employment and economic growth from stronger South-South ties in the maritime segment of the world economy. In the longer term an integrated system of global oceanic connectivity and environmental policy coordination could be advanced by BRICS+ economies via international platforms such as COP and O20.

[1] https://www.hindustantimes.com/s/deeplink?targetUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hindustantimes.com%2Fht-explainers%2Fa-distress-network-for-seafarers-at-sea-what-modi-proposed-at-brics-and-why-india-needs-it-101789261863233.html&utm_source=Web&utm_campaign=article_share&utm_medium=web2app&redirectToBrowser=false&skipPreviewPageIOS=false&appPrefix=ht
[2] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2290683&reg=48&lang=2
[3] https://www.ics-shipping.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Seafarer-Workforce-Report-2026-Executive-Summary.pdf
[4] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2290683&reg=48&lang=2
[5] https://transcripts.un.org/en/asset/k18/k1890nmrmw
[6] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/bridging-oceanic-divides-in-search-of-new-connectivity-paradigms/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics

South Africa
Source: dirco.gov.za

Programme Director and Member of SA Foreign Service, Mr Nelson Kgwete and your delegation,
University of Zululand, the Vice Chancellor and Principal, Prof Kunene and your esteemed delegation,
Dr Nomalungelo Gina, Honourable Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation,
Palestine Deputy Ambassador and Political Counsellor, Excellency Mr Bassam Elhussiny,
BRICS Student Commission, Mr Sibusiso Nene and your delegation,

Members of the Student Body, SRC President Awande Mkhize and your delegation,
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, and given and transmitted from the past (Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852 Karl Marx).
It is a privilege to address the faculty and students at the University of Zululand on the theme: Securing South Africa’s Future – From Critical Minerals to Critical Knowledge: Student Leadership, Science Diplomacy and Higher Education Resilience in an Era of Global Trade Fragmentation.

Students at this University have already been debating South Africa’s balancing act between non-alignment, BRICS cooperation and a fragmenting international trading system. That is precisely as it should be. Universities must be places where power is questioned and new possibilities imagined.
Your generation is coming of age as trade becomes an instrument of geopolitical power, technology an arena of national-security competition, AI transforms economies, and the green transition redraws industrial power. The developing world therefore confronts an old question in a new form: will we merely supply the resources that enable the prosperity of others, or acquire the knowledge, technology and productive capacity to build prosperity ourselves?

Antonio Gramsci aptly described the current geopolitical and geo economic landscape that we find ourselves in when he wrote:

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Those words speak powerfully to our time. The old order is under strain and the new has not been settled. We see an expanding BRICS, a more assertive Global South and demands for reform of global institutions; but also, war, protectionism, technological blockades, erosion of international law and intensifying competition for strategic resources.

We are witnessing a struggle over the character of the order that will follow.

South Africa does not seek a world in which one hegemon is merely replaced by another. We seek a democratic, equitable order based on sovereign equality, international law and multilateralism — multicultural and multi-civilisational in character, multipolar in its distribution of power, and pluri-versal in its recognition of diverse knowledge systems and paths to development.

Pluriversality matters because no single country, civilisation or worldview should claim an exclusive right to define humanity’s future. For Africa, multipolarity must create agency, while pluriversality must create political and intellectual space for our own ideas, knowledge systems and developmental priorities.
Amílcar Cabral understood the deeper meaning of this struggle. He argued that national liberation had to restore a people’s capacity to develop its own productive forces. Political sovereignty without productive capability can leave a country formally independent yet structurally dependent.

And in his exact words: “National liberation is necessarily an act of culture.”

In the twenty-first century, political sovereignty must therefore be accompanied by economic sovereignty, technological sovereignty and knowledge sovereignty. Sovereignty is no longer measured only by territory and a flag, but also by whether a nation possesses the scientific, technological and productive capacity to determine its own future.

THE GEOPOLITICAL LANDSCAPE — A WORLD REORDERING AROUND NATIONAL INTERESTS AND RESOURCES

Ladies and gentlemen,
The multilateral system — and the trading system in particular — that governed the global economy for seven decades, anchored in the WTO, is fracturing. We have entered an era of geoeconomic competition in which trade policy, industrial subsidies, technology restrictions and supply-chain architecture are deployed as instruments of strategic rivalry.

The United States, China, the European Union and other major centres of power are investing enormous political and financial resources in securing the technologies, manufacturing capabilities and strategic inputs upon which future economic power will depend.

Artificial intelligence may appear weightless, but it depends upon semiconductors, data centres, energy systems and specialised materials; so, do batteries, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing and defence. The contest for technological leadership is therefore inseparable from the contest over the physical foundations of technology.

Yet even as the international order fractures, the world has just been reminded of what is at stake.
Three days ago, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, the South African jurist and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “for her efforts to promote peace and international law” — the fifth South African to receive that honour, after Chief Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Presidents Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk.
Justice Pillay’s words speak directly to this moment:

“We are living through an era when international law and human rights are under significant political attack… This recognition has strengthened my conviction that we must stand together in defence of the rule of law, in defence of independent courts, and an international legal order based on principle.”
South Africa’s defence of multilateralism is therefore a defence of law over raw power. At the same time, critical minerals are increasingly embedded in national-security and industrial strategy.

THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA 2.0

We should speak candidly about what this means for our continent. There is a new scramble for strategic resources underway.

The nineteenth-century scramble for Africa involved territorial conquest, political domination, slavery and the extraction of raw materials and agricultural products for food, water and energy security etc.
The twenty-first-century scramble is more sophisticated. It concerns who secures access to strategic critical and rare-earth minerals for digital, AI and green technologies; who finances extraction; who controls processing, refining and transport corridors; who owns the technology and intellectual property; who sets standards; and ultimately where the greatest share of value is captured.

The United States understands this. China understands it. Europe, India, Japan and other important economic powers understand it. Africa must understand it too. It would be naïve to regard the global surge of interest in Africa’s critical minerals as an act of generosity. Countries pursue narrow national interests.

As we reflect on this question, we are reminded that October is OR Tambo month. And OR as he was affectionately known was our for most diplomat, and internationalist. We should therefore ask: what would OR Tambo demand of us in confronting this new scramble for Africa? Surely, he would insist that Africa act with unity, strategic discipline. patience and confidence in its own agency — mobilising international partnerships not for dependency, but for liberation, development and the advancement of our people’s interests.

Our responsibility is therefore to become considerably more effective at pursuing our own. Africa must not become a pawn in a geopolitical contest between major powers, nor should it be compelled to choose between competing external centres of power.

South Africa’s strategic autonomy means that we engage all partners, cooperate where our interests converge, disagree where necessary, and retain the sovereign right to determine our developmental path.

This is not passive non-alignment. It is active strategic autonomy. Africa needs markets, finance, technology and partnerships. The question is: on what terms? Partnerships must industrialise, transfer technology, build skills and infrastructure, strengthen research and manufacturing, and deliver development to communities. Africa must not exchange an old dependency for a new dependency painted green or digital.

Karl Marx famously wrote that great world-historic facts appear twice: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

Africa knows the tragedy of the first scramble. We dare not allow history to return as farce. It would be an unforgivable historical irony if Africa were again reduced to supplying the raw materials for somebody else’s industrial revolution — this time under the banners of artificial intelligence, digital transformation and the green transition.

If Africa digs while others process, exports while others manufacture and bears environmental and social costs while others capture technology, intellectual property and industrial value, then the underlying relationship has not changed sufficiently.

The response to this new scramble must therefore be a Pan-African programme of economic liberation.

SOUTH AFRICA’S STRATEGIC POSITION AND THE CRITICAL MINERALS STRATEGY

Ladies and gentlemen,

Our mineral wealth is not simply significant — it is irreplaceable. Mining contributes approximately 7% of GDP, accounts for 84% of export sales, and provides employment for hundreds of thousands of South Africans directly, with many more in downstream and upstream industries.

In May 2025, the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources released its Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy.

It recognises that South Africa’s minerals are no longer merely commodities, but strategic assets in a global contest for technological supremacy, clean-energy security and economic dominance.

The Strategy identifies 21 strategic minerals, with platinum-group metals, manganese, iron ore, coal and chrome among the high-criticality group.

It promotes local beneficiation and advanced manufacturing, electric vehicles, battery storage and green hydrogen, job creation, skills and cross-border value chains through AfCFTA and regional integration.
Beneficiation is not simply processing a rock one additional stage before export. It is building an industrial ecosystem of energy, infrastructure, finance, science, markets, intellectual property and universities across South Africa, the region and the continent.

Mineral sovereignty and knowledge sovereignty are therefore part of the same project. Knowledge sovereignty does not mean isolation. It means possessing the capability to define our own research priorities and participate in international knowledge systems as co-creators, not permanent consumers.
Thus, research partnerships, university networks, technology agreements, standards, student exchanges and intellectual-property governance are increasingly diplomatic instruments, together regarded as science diplomacy.

Noting the above, South Africa’s foreign policy remains grounded in a principled commitment to a rules-based, transparent and non-discriminatory multilateral global economic system.

It is the same conviction that shaped our G20 Presidency in 2025 and one we will carry into our BRICS Chairship in 2028.

We are also engaging on the development of a critical-minerals diplomacy strategy premised on our critical minerals strategy that advances South Africa’s developmental objectives and mineral sovereignty.

FROM BENEFICIATION TO A PAN-AFRICAN INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

South Africa cannot pursue this agenda in isolation. The scale of contemporary industrial competition means that our strategic horizon must be Southern African and continental.

What we require is not disconnected national strategies competing to export raw minerals, but an integrated regional industrial strategy built around complete Southern African value chains connecting resources, processing, research, manufacturing, energy and logistics.

South Africa currently chairs the SADC Council of Ministers, and beneficiation of critical minerals, stronger regional value chains and accelerated industrialisation are among the priorities of our regional agenda. SADC’s Industrialisation Strategy identifies mineral beneficiation and regional value chains as central to economic transformation.

Africa’s Green Minerals Strategy calls on the continent to move beyond unprocessed exports, while the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) provides a market framework for continental industrialisation.

The political task is implementation: infrastructure, energy integration, research cooperation, industrial finance and strategic coordination. When Africa coordinates around development, technology and value addition, our bargaining power changes. That is the difference between being the object of another scramble and becoming an agent shaping the new global economy.

Pan-Africanism must therefore be more than political solidarity. In this century it must also mean economic integration, technological cooperation and collective industrial power.

BRICS COOPERATION, CRITICAL MINERALS AND YOUTH LEADERSHIP

Ladies and gentlemen,

In 2026, it is nearly impossible to discuss critical minerals and the future global economy without BRICS.
Since South Africa joined in 2010, BRICS has expanded into an influential grouping of 10 emerging economies, representing approximately 49% of the world’s population and 40% of global GDP measured at purchasing-power parity.

BRICS countries collectively possess significant critical-mineral reserves, including approximately 72% of the world’s rare earths, 45% of graphite, 28% of nickel and 21% of lithium.

These resources position BRICS strategically within global energy and technology value chains and present South Africa with opportunities to advance beneficiation, industrialisation, technology transfer and sustainable development.

BRICS cooperation is structured around three pillars: political and security cooperation; economic and financial cooperation; and cultural and people-to-people cooperation.

On 12 and 13 September 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa participated in the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi under the theme Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.
The Summit reaffirmed the importance of critical minerals to energy security, technological advancement and sustainable development.

The New Delhi Declaration emphasised responsible, diversified and resilient critical-mineral supply chains that promote benefit-sharing, value addition and economic diversification in resource-rich countries, while preserving sovereign rights over mineral resources.

This is particularly significant for South Africa and Africa. For too long, Africa has exported minerals in raw form and imported finished products at significantly higher prices. Almost 58% of South Africa’s exports to BRICS markets consist of iron ore, chromium ore, coal, manganese and diamonds.

But BRICS must not reproduce within the Global South the extractive patterns we criticise elsewhere. It would be a profound contradiction if Africa supplied raw materials to expanded BRICS economies while high-value manufacturing and technology remained concentrated elsewhere.

The purpose of BRICS cannot merely be to change the destination of raw-material exports while leaving the structure of dependency intact. While BRICS presents significant opportunities, structural trade imbalances remain a challenge.

In 2025, South Africa recorded a trade deficit of approximately R286.3 billion with BRICS countries. This reinforces the need to move towards beneficiation, industrialisation, technological innovation and value-added exports.

As President Ramaphosa emphasised at the 2026 BRICS Leaders’ Summit, beneficiation must take place at source to ensure inclusive growth. Our ambition must extend beyond mining towards processing, manufacturing and developing the technologies and industries that will drive future growth.
BRICS cooperation offers opportunities to pursue this ambition through investment, technology transfer, scientific research, skills development and stronger regional value chains, including through the AfCFTA.
But mineral wealth alone cannot secure prosperity. Our greatest resource remains our people — particularly our youth.

1976, 2026: FIFTY YEARS ON AND THE MISSION OF YOUR GENERATION

Distinguished students,
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the June 1976 student uprising. Those students confronted Bantu Education and transformed a struggle over education into a powerful chapter of national liberation. Their circumstances were different from yours, but the question of generational responsibility remains.

Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth: “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.” The students of 1976 discovered their mission. Fifty years later, what is the mission of the generation of 2026?

Surely part of that mission is the unfinished task of economic liberation: transforming political freedom into productive capacity, mineral wealth into industrialisation, universities into engines of African innovation, and regional integration into shared prosperity — while ensuring that Africa does not finance the next technological revolution and remain excluded from its benefits.

This is why youth participation within BRICS matters. In this regard South Africa has consistently championed meaningful youth participation, including through the establishment of the BRICS Youth Council during our 2023 Chairship.

The 2026 New Delhi Declaration recognised young people as drivers of innovation, inclusion and sustainable development and reaffirmed cooperation through the Youth Council, Youth Summit, education, entrepreneurship, science and technology.

In early September 2026, the fifth BRICS Summer School at UNISA brought together students, researchers, government representatives and young professionals, reaffirming our commitment to the next generation of diplomats, researchers, scientists and policymakers.

But BRICS is not without challenges, yet South Africa remains confident in its relevance as we prepare for our 2028 Chairship.

To the students gathered here today: You cannot merely observe these transformations. Student leadership must mean more than campus representation.

The next generation of African leadership will require political consciousness and technical competence — the ability to connect geopolitics with engineering, AI, biotechnology, climate science and law. Your education is therefore a national and continental resource.

Ask difficult questions:
Why should a mineral-rich continent remain poor while exporting strategic resources and importing high-value technologies? And most importantly: What are you going to build differently? Cabral’s generation confronted political liberation. Yours must decide what we do with that freedom.

CONCLUSION

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me conclude with a simple proposition:

The mineral beneath our soil and the knowledge within our minds must no longer be separated. Africa possesses many of the materials upon which the twenty-first-century economy will be built. But possessing resources is not the same as possessing power. Resources become power when combined with knowledge, institutions and productive capacity. And sovereignty becomes meaningful when a people possess the capability to determine the direction of their own development.

The first scramble for Africa was a tragedy. It dispossessed our people, extracted our resources and structured African economies to serve the industrial development of others.

We dare not allow the new scramble to become Marx’s farce — the same extractive relationship dressed this time in the language of artificial intelligence, digital transformation, green technologies and supply-chain security.

Africa’s answer must be different: Beneficiation. Integration. Technology transfer. Knowledge production. Industrialisation. Agency.

South Africa’s message to the world should therefore be clear. We welcome partnership, investment, trade and scientific collaboration with East and West, North and South.

But the era in which Africa’s role is simply to dig and ship must end. If you require our minerals, let us also build industries. If you seek secure supply chains, let us also build secure African livelihoods. If you seek partnership, let those partnerships develop African technology, African skills and African productive capability. And if the world requires Africa for the industries of the future, then Africa must have a meaningful place in owning, designing and producing that future.

To the students at the University of Zululand: The most important critical resource in this room is not lithium, manganese, platinum or a rare earth. It is your knowledge, courage, intellectual independence, capacity to question, ability to innovate and your determination to build.

Fifty years ago, young South Africans demonstrated that students were not peripheral to history. They became makers of history. Your struggle is different, but the obligation to act remains.

The twenty-first century will be shaped by who controls technology, knowledge, productive capacity and the resources that make the future possible.

Africa must therefore enter the emerging international order not as a spectator, not as a quarry and not as a pawn in somebody else’s geopolitical contest. Africa must enter it as an author, an innovator, a producer and a sovereign participant.

That is the meaning of knowledge sovereignty. That is the purpose of beneficiation at source. That is the contemporary meaning of economic liberation. That is the promise of Pan-African integration. That is what multipolarity and pluriversality must mean for our continent.

And, fifty years after the students of 1976 answered history’s call, that is the mission now passing into the hands of your generation.

I thank you.

ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION
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