In recent months there was a bit of a lull in the newsflow on BRICS, including in terms of opinion polls. One recent article fills this void to some degree as it presents the results of a survey of African think-tanks on the attitude towards BRICS and some of the key themes in the bloc's development
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
In recent months there was a bit of a lull in the newsflow on BRICS, including in terms of opinion polls. One recent article fills this void to some degree as it presents the results of a survey of African think-tanks on the attitude towards BRICS and some of the key themes in the bloc's development.
The results of the survey conducted by MGIMO researchers in 2025 featured the following questions:
1. How would you define BRICS's aspirations within the existing international monetary and financial system?
2. Do you think that the New Development Bank (NDB) under the BRICS umbrella can become an effective alternative to the World Bank in the future?
3. Do you think the BRICS needs to establish: a Free trade zone; a Secretariat; a Single currency; an Organization to coordinate the supply of commodities
With respect to the first question, the majority of the respondents (more than 52%) stated that BRICS represents an alternative way of economic cooperation; more than 30% (30.4%) stated that BRICS opposes the Western institutions of the Bretton Woods system, with a clear minority choosing either the option of BRICS being complementary to the existing monetary and financial system (8.7%) and BRICS being embedded in the existing monetary and financial system (8.7%).
Such a pattern of responses coming from the African expert community points to a vision of BRICS as an alternative force in global governance, with the share of those that see the bloc as merely a complement to the existing system being in clear minority. Thus far, however, my sense is that BRICS is developing along the track of complementarity vis-à-vis the Bretton Woods institutions, with the official summit declarations of the bloc expressing support for the IMF, the World and the WTO with the proviso on the need for these organizations to reflect the increasing role of the economies of the Global South.
In the question about the effectiveness of the New Development Bank less than a half of the respondents (43.5%) gave a positive response with respect to the capability of this BRICS institution to become a credible alternative to the World Bank. More than 30% provided a negative response, while other views ranged between 3% to 7% and included such assessments as the NDB being too small; the Bank being a promising, but not yet a full alternative to the World Bank as well as the view that its success depends on the development of a single currency and other projects of financial cooperation.
Such a distribution of views is in line with the feedback that I frequently heard in expert discussions on BRICS and NDB in recent years - new BRICS initiatives and financing platforms in the sphere of environmental policy were seen by some of the experts as being incompatible with imbedding them into NDB operations given the lack of resources and activism on the part of NDB at this stage of its development. My view, however, is that it is still relatively early days for NDB and the recent momentum in its membership expansion could raise its role in the global economy in the coming years.
The third question that focused on the key priorities for BRICS showed the greatest support (as measured by the difference between the positive views and the share of negative votes) being accorded to the creation of an organization for coordination of the supply of commodities; the second most positive track was the creation of a Secretariat; the third was the creation of a free trade area and the single currency project came last. Importantly, however, with respect to the BRICS single currency project the difference between positive and negative votes was still well in the positive territory suggesting that this initiative is still largely supported by the African expert community.
Overall, the results are in line with the expert assessments in the media that in recent periods increasingly contained positive views on the possibility of BRICS coordination in the sphere of natural resources as well as on the need for greater institutionalization (including via the creation of a BRICS Secretariat). At the same time, the views on the creation of a free trade area and a single currency were more ambivalent, though the events of 2025, including the US trade pressure and US concerns with respect to the possibility of the creation of a BRICS common currency, suggest that these policy priorities may at the very least merit a more in-depth discussion/evaluation in the coming years in the BRICS/African expert community.
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