Statement by Ambassador Mandisi Mpahlwa of South Africa, Peoples’ Friendship University, Moscow, 18 May 2011

“SOUTH AFRICA’S ACCESSION TO BRICS:

ITS RELEVANCE FOR TODAY’S GLOBAL AGENDA”

I would like to acknowledge the representatives of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, the Chamber of Commerce and the prominent academics present here today. I would also like to thank the Peoples’ Friendship University for giving us this platform to share our thinking and views on BRICS, which South Africa was invited to join in December 2010. This led to South Africa’s participation in its first BRICS Summit in Sanya, China, in April this year, which I attended as part of President Jacob Zuma’s delegation.

I would like to start by highlighting the importance South Africa attaches to BRICS.

From the outset, South Africa saw more in this mechanism than had most commentators. For us, it was never about the size of the economies, populations or landmasses of the BRIC member countries.

Rather, South Africa sensed that BRIC was no longer an economist’s forecast or an academic prediction of which developing countries would first emerge to share centre stage with the leading economic powers. BRIC in a sense already existed in reality as an association of like-minded countries with a reputation for being independent and committed to reforming global decision-making structures to make them more balanced, representative and hence better able to address contemporary realities. South Africa saw beyond the original Jim O’Neil projection about the role these countries would play in the coming decades. We saw a broader strategic agenda where, perhaps informally, our thinking tended to converge with the BRIC countries.

In other words, we saw BRIC as more than just a catchy acronym to describe a category of rapidly developing countries. It has the potential to become a political and moral force for change.

This grouping, representing three billion people, as it does, was already making its presence felt in multilateral fora, such as the G20. For a while now the BRIC countries have been demonstrating the great value they attach to development, peace, prosperity, security and the creation of a just world.

They are also seeking change in a non-confrontational matter, mindful of the fact that the traditional centres of power are their friends and essential partners for modernisation and development. All of them, if you look at them individually, do have broad and deep relations with many countries of the so-called developed North.

When South Africa joined BRICS it was already part of a grouping with India and Brazil called ‘IBSA’, so a question that could be asked is “What is the difference between IBSA and BRICS?”  IBSA is a coming together of what is historically referred to as the “South”, but BRICS - with the presence of Russia as a First World Country - is a bridge between North and South. So, we see value in both forums.

Sharing the values and aspirations of the BRIC countries - and with each member being regionally significant where it is located - it was only natural that South Africa would wish to be included in BRIC.

South Africa is also a regionally significant power. It generates a quarter of the entire African continent’s GDP and more than half its electricity. It is Africa’s biggest investor and trades intensively with the rest of the continent.

So, this coming together of regionally significant emerging economies is an important dimension of BRICS.

We also felt that our inclusion would close a gap in the geographical composition of the group, in that we would bring an African perspective to the table. In our view, no movement for change could be fully effective without reference to Africa - and addressing issues that are related to Africa - given that Africa is the third fastest growing economy in the world and the continent whose true economic potential is furthest from being fully realised. Africa’s abundant natural resources may already be well-known, but its human capital and capacity for change and innovation have always been greatly under-valued and under-estimated. 

If you look at the global economic, political and security issues of the day, you will see that they involve Africa. Whether it is the problems of the Least Developed Countries, which are mostly located in Africa, meeting the Millennium Development Goals or the security challenges that are before the United Nations Security Council, a great percentage of the work to be done relates to Africa. So, if we talk of a more secure and balanced world, we need to include Africa and to address the problems of Africa. South Africa brings this perspective to BRICS. 

Furthermore, it is clear that our future prosperity is increasingly linked to the economies of BRICS, which are amongst our largest trading partners and source of new foreign investment. Indeed, China and the other BRICS members are the world’s new creditors and they have the resources, skills and political will to work together to address the challenges of Africa and help it to achieve its developmental objectives. South Africa therefore hopes that membership of BRICS would open another door for African partnership with these key countries.

South Africa has its own drive and sense of what needs to be done in Africa. South Africa is powering African growth and development, its companies are investing in Africa and its trade with its fellow African partners is growing in leaps and bounds. At a governmental level, South Africa is engaging actively to promote peace and security. We are helping to resolve conflicts. We are deploying peacekeeping troops and we are providing support to post-conflict reconstruction processes.

However, we are aware that the challenge is so huge that we cannot succeed on our own. We therefore need partners and BRICS has the resources and will to respond to Africa’s developmental and security needs.

Having outlined the importance we attached to inclusion in BRIC and the fact that South Africa saw more in BRIC than most commentators did, it was good news and a moment of great political significance when we were invited to join. 

At the Summit in China, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China welcomed South Africa into the group and spoke of the value they attach to the perspectives South Africa would bring to the group, as well as our role in ensuring that Africa is brought into the mainstream of the global reform agenda. Our partners also made it clear that they regard South Africa as an ally and as a guide on economic development opportunities into the Southern African region and the broader African continent.

In response, President Zuma thanked the other members for the confidence they have demonstrated in South Africa. He remarked that “We are now equal co-architects of a new equitable international system…there is unity of purpose in our diversity and this is what renders this mechanism unique and increasingly influential… we share a collective accountability now to the global community and notably the emerging market and developing economies component thereof”.

President Zuma cast South Africa’s participation in BRICS in the context of the African Agenda. He spoke of the economic potential of the African continent, with its market of one billion consumers and enormous reserves of raw materials that need to be beneficiated locally to create jobs and build a modern industrial economy. He invited companies of the BRICS member states to join hands with South African companies in the development of Africa and pointed out that in terms of infrastructure alone, 480 billion dollars in investments will be required over the next ten years.

Our President has been mandated by the African Union to lead the High Level Sub-Committee on Infrastructure, which is working on the so-called “North-South corridor” project. This focuses on developing the rail and road infrastructure of the continent from North to South. So, a lot of our international engagements will be to seek support for this initiative, which will develop the infrastructure that is needed for trade between African countries that have traditionally found it easier to trade with those outside the continent.

A third important impact of our accession to BRICS, which I would like to highlight, relates to the opportunity it presents to deepen our sectoral co-operation with our fellow members of BRICS. At the Summit, a wide range of areas for sectoral co-operation between BRICS countries were discussed and there will be technical follow-up meetings in strategic sectors, such as science and technology, development finance and energy. One of the tangible and practical outcomes of BRICS will therefore be enhanced bilateral co-operation and new projects relevant to innovation, development and modernisation between South Africa and the individual BRICS countries, including Russia. This deepening of intra-BRICS co-operation is going to be an important aspect of what we are hoping to achieve through BRICS. We are seeking to maximise the collective resolve and to leverage the strengths and capacities each possesses for the collective benefit. For example, Russia has always been a leader in space and South Africa has developed key skills and technologies in the mining sector.

In conclusion, South Africa’s accession to BRICS is a turning point for South Africa, as it has given us a new - and elevated - platform from which to advance our foreign policy objectives, most notably the African Agenda.

The messages we have long been communicating about the need for an African presence in global decision-making and to reform the international system to take account of the needs and aspirations of developing countries, will carry greater weight when advanced collectively by BRICS. In this regard, our participation in BRICS complements our work in the African Union and interesting new opportunities for cross-linkages will emerge between BRICS sectoral projects and Africa’s development programme, the ‘New Partnership for Africa’s Development’ (NEPAD). South Africa was a key driver of NEPAD, as we needed Africa to have its own perspective of what it wants to achieve and a framework for the international community to co-operate with Africa.

Africa has an invaluable ally in BRICS for negotiations in various multilateral bodies. Together, the countries of BRICS present a formidable force that will be hard to ignore on the international stage, particularly in the negotiations on reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions, negotiations towards a more equitable trading system and on climate change. We expect a deepening of the conversation within BRICS on how we can drive this reform agenda.

What I saw at the BRICS Summit convinces me that we are witnessing the birth of a new force in international relations.

I left China filled with hope and with a realisation that BRICS is not a conduit for renewed conflict between North and South, or East and West. It sees its role - in partnership with others from all levels of development - as to help create a more just and equitable international order that is of benefit to all of humanity through entrenching multilateralism and reforming the institutions of global governance. This involves reform of the international monetary and financial system and broadening the base of the global economic order by enhancing the contribution of emerging economies through deeper co-operation among them, such as in BRICS. 

South Africa belongs in a grouping with such an agenda.