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Professor Reason McDuff
Last week, the spokesperson of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr Livit Mugejo confirmed that the country was considering joining the BRICS.
The forum allows countries outside of Western developed economies to forge alliances on economic issues.
As it gets larger, its influence and economic importance grows.
Iran and Argentina have already applied to join.
The BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. For Zimbabwe, these are already friendly countries who have been helping it individually, under most difficult times and by joining BRICS, the country would have pooled its help in one place.
Last week, at one of the BRICS forums, Russian President Putin announced that Russia, alongside China and other BRICS nations, was getting ready to launch a new global reserve currency made up of a basket of BRICS currencies.
If successful, such a reserve currency would be a direct threat to the currently dominant US dollar.
This is a wise decision!
While the process may take time, the decision is certainly good for Zimbabwe that for more than two decades has been unfairly treated by the United States and its allies.
Zimbabwe’s crime with US and its western allies is that it decided to take back prime farming land from the white minority mainly of British descent.
The US and its allies have used human rights records, poor governance and accountability as smokescreens behind which to hide their hatred for Zimbabwe for taking the land.
All the lies about human rights violations are to ring-fence the fallacies that land was supposed to remain in the hands of the white people.
But since pre-independence, Zimbabwe was helped by mainly Russia and China to execute its liberation struggle, with support for basics and weapons, as well as training.
I am oblivious of the fact that Zimbabwe has made all efforts to re-join the Commonwealth, itself a group of former British colonies and the have been making it too hard for Zimbabwe to unconditionally join.
The sad part of it is that Zimbabwe was not expelled from the Commonwealth, but it withdrew because the organisation was making it difficult for the southern African country to execute its much delayed land reform programme.
And, so, like Zimbabwe did with its successful look east policy, the Second Republic under President Mnangagwa, has gone out of its way to engage all and sundry and that cannot be taken as a weakness, but a strength.
BRICS will be good home for Zimbabwe. The BRICS are a good and broad based economy. The benefits of Zimbabwe are too good to explore.
Zimbabwe, which has revived its agriculture sector and is working hard to revive its economy under attack from sanctions imposed by US and its allies, can easily leverage of the BRICS economy that is growing fast enough to counter the G7 world economy.
In many ways, BRICS could provide balance to the G7 group of developed nations that has long held something of a leadership position over the global economy.
Over time, BRICS could become more influential than the G7, even if this could take a few decades.
BRICS is likely to dominate the global economy by 2050. In 2009, BRICS held its first summit, in 2010 South Africa joined the group.
The BRICS members have continued to meet, and they have created a disparate group with enormous potential.
In many ways, BRICS could provide balance to the G7 group of developed nations that has long held something of a leadership position over the global economy.
Over time, BRICS could become more influential than the G7, even if this could take a few decades. Certainly, though, BRICS has a direct impact on many more people.
The economies that made up the G7 this year — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union — are home to about 16 percent of the world’s population, while the BRICS economies account for almost 41 percent of that population.
On the other hand, the G7 members account for 62 percent of the global economy, while the BRICS economies account for a little more than a quarter, and the average per capita GDP of the G7 economies was almost six times larger than that of BRICS.
With that said, BRICS grew at an average of 6.26 percent in 2021, according to World Bank numbers, while the G7 grew at 5.15 percent.
BRICS grew faster than the world average, while the G7 grew at a slower pace. And this has been the case for some time.
For now, the G7 holds the reins of the global economy, but the scales are beginning to even out and the BRICS is rising too fast.
So, the Zimbabwean Government is reading the world economic signals more correctly and its future lies in partnership with countries like Russia and China that have stood by it since the times of the liberation struggle.
The BRICS are constituted by countries that know fair play and have resources for win-win deals, something that Zimbabwe has been yearning for, for many years after being systematically shut out of international multilateral funding institutions by the sanctions.
Zimbabwe is fighting to have a middle income economy by 2030.
If it was not for the illegal sanctions, Zimbabwe would be having a complex and reasonably well-developed economy, and it has a quality educational system.
Zimbabwe needs to join the BRICS to secure future sources of funds as it runs out of options with existing Western-led organisations.
The challenge with Zimbabwe since the sanctions were imposed in 2001 has been that its economy, has been forced to jump from one crisis to the other as the West construct it to effect regime change.
So, the BRICS will be home to Zimbabwe, with motherly safe and sound atmosphere.
BRICS, increasingly backstopped by China’s growing wealth, could lend some stability to the Zimbabwean economy in the decades ahead.
Zimbabwe needs this.
When you at country by country attitude on Zimbabwe Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping love Zimbabwe.
Their countries have invested a lot in Zimbabwe and they may have nothing to lose when they see Zimbabwe’s application on their tables.
Brazil has been supplying agriculture equipment to Zimbabwe for many years.
Brazil will certainly cherish having Zimbabwe in the same basket. India has helped Zimbabwe a lot in the field of medicine and education.
South Africa is Zimbabwe’s neighbour and biggest trade partner. It understands Zimbabwe more than any other country.
If Zimbabwe applies to join BRICS and gets accepted, it could open the door for other countries to follow suit and that will strengthen the organisation.
An expanded BRICS could, if members managed to find some kind of ideological guiding compass and common ground on issues, emerge as a powerful force for global leadership.
Prof Reason McDuff is a political scientist based in Brussels, Belgium. He writes in his personal opinion
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