Africa and BRICS: Areas of Convergence and Points of Tension Ahead of the Third Russia–Africa Summit

How do BRICS priorities align with the African Union’s Agenda 2063?

The programme for the Russia–Africa Summit was developed with due regard for the African Union’s (AU) policy documents. This reflects Russia’s and other BRICS partners’ intention to position themselves not as external actors imposing their own point of view, but as co-authors of Africa’s vision for its future. However, what matters most is not declarative alignment, but the existence of real mechanisms through which African countries can do more than adapt their priorities to the interests of major players in the bloc: they must also be able to influence the agenda forming process within BRICS.

Both BRICS summit declarations and Agenda 2063 invoke sovereignty, multipolarity and the reform of global governance. Yet this convergence of positions does not automatically guarantee adherence to the principle of “African solutions to African problems.” Making this principle a reality requires BRICS to support African agency, particularly in the field of security, where major powers have traditionally tended to act according to their own rules.

Unfortunately, a larger African presence in BRICS does not yet translate into stronger collective influence for African countries. Following the accession of Egypt and Ethiopia to BRICS and the granting of partner-country status to several other African states, Africa is now broadly represented in the alliance.

Where do the interests of BRICS and Africa converge, and where might they clash?

Finance is the area where BRICS and Africa have the greatest convergence of interests, but the scale of the New Development Bank’s (NDB) operations and its rules limit the ability to support African countries. African countries have repeatedly pointed to the political conditionality attached to loans from traditional international institutions, and the NDB is positioned as an alternative in this regard. However, its current scale of operations remains far below the infrastructure financing needs of the African continent. Moreover, not all BRICS members support reforming the global financial rules.

BRICS and Africa are both interested in reforming global governance, but their proposed approaches to implementing this strategy differ. Both call for greater representation of developing countries in the UN Security Council and a review of outdated institutions. However, BRICS support for UN Security Council reform does not necessarily mean support for African candidates, since several members of the grouping are themselves seeking permanent seats in the Council and are therefore competing with African states.

The goals of economic cooperation between BRICS and African countries also differ to some extent. BRICS countries are interested in access to African resources, while Africa seeks to expand its exports. Their interests align when it comes to trade of raw materials but diverge when processed goods are involved. Africa’s development agenda, including Agenda 2063, prioritizes industrialization and the local processing of resources. If cooperation with BRICS is limited to the extraction and export of raw materials, it will reproduce the colonial model that the principle of “African solutions to African problems” seeks to overcome. This is why projects focused on processing, technology transfer and industrial cooperation are so important—not just trade deals involving raw commodities.

Debt sustainability remains the area of sharpest divergence. BRICS offers African countries alternative sources of financing without political conditions, including the NDB and bilateral loans from member countries, but it does not provide mechanisms to ease the burden of servicing existing debt. African countries spend as much as 60% of their budgets on debt servicing, making the debt issue a key argument in favour of alternative financial institutions. African BRICS members—Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa—could initiate efforts to promote debt restructuring. However, there is no consensus within the grouping on this issue as BRICS creditors have little interest in establishing universal debt-relief mechanisms. In these circumstances, the Russia–Africa Summit could demonstrate BRICS’ willingness to offer Africa not only new credit lines, but also tools for managing its existing debt.

Payment infrastructure is one of the most developed areas of converging interests between BRICS and African countries. However, the development of payment systems that do not interact with one another could create new fragmentation rather than a unified payments space.

Meanwhile, the BRICS Bridge project is under discussion, alongside potential links between BRICS central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and Africa’s Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS). This gives African countries a way to reduce their dependence on the US dollar and speed up settlements. However, a proliferation of uncoordinated “bridges” and platforms could leave African businesses facing not a single alternative channel, but a new patchwork of incompatible standards. The key question, therefore, is not how many new payment systems are launched, but how well they are connected and made interoperable.