Participants of BRICS Forum on Partnership on New Industrial Revolution 2024 pose for a group photo in Xiamen, southeast China's Fujian province, Sept. 10, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

The world is expecting the first-ever summit of an expanded BRICS due this week in Kazan, Russia.

The 16th summit follows a historic edition held in South Africa last year when the world witnessed the welcoming of new members under the BRICS mechanism.

BRICS over the past years has grown in leaps and bounds, becoming a critical platform for promoting multilateralism and multipolarity to achieve mutual goals for development, lasting peace and securing a future for humankind.

The 16th summit comes amid the growing weaponization of political and trade affairs as well as escalating conflicts across the globe, primarily catalyzed by the self-serving U.S. military-industrial complex, the increasingly war-thirsty NATO and its Western allies who have left tensions to fester and even sponsored military conflicts.

The upcoming summit, against this backdrop, must provide possibilities for silencing the guns and bringing warring factions towards a negotiable settlement.

In preparation for the summit, Russia as the chairperson has already convened extensive engagements and sessions to bolster avenues for more cooperation among the BRICS countries.

One of them is an online meeting on the functioning of the BRICS Vaccine R&D Centre held in September, with a special focus on equitable access to vaccines against infectious diseases globally, and the need for international cooperation to successfully respond to new challenges, including a coordinated response to threats posed by "disease X."

This was followed by a meeting of BRICS Ministers for Women's Affairs in St. Petersburg, Russia on Sept. 20 to identify "areas of interaction" in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with its fifth goal in particular to empower all women and girls and achieve gender equality.

On Sept. 26, 2024, the 9th BRICS Energy Ministers' meeting was held in Moscow, Russia. The meeting agreed on a mutual connection between the energy and climate agendas, and that climate goals and tasks should not hinder the economic development of respective countries.

Russia, ever since it took the bloc's rotating chairmanship for 2024, has outlined three groups of priorities, namely policy and security, cooperation in economy and finance, humanitarian and cultural exchanges.

The chairing state proposes BRICS to counter the fragmentation of the multilateral trade system, resist rising protectionism, and oppose unilateral trade restrictions, enhance coordination on multilateral platforms such as the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and G20, as well as increase trade volumes and direct investment.

Other goals in the economic realm include promoting fair transition to a low-carbon economy and strengthening cooperation in various fields such as industry and digitalization, agriculture and food security, energy, and transportation.

In the humanitarian and cultural spheres, BRICS aims to boost cooperation in education, including through the BRICS Network University and technical and vocational education programs. Collaboration among young scientists and innovators will be strengthened, and cultural exchanges will be intensified. Regional cooperation between BRICS cities and municipalities will also be expanded, alongside enhanced efforts to promote tourism.

Now with expanded representativeness, the BRICS mechanism presents real possibilities for making the globe a fairer community of nations, with possibilities for mutual support and cooperation towards our respective goals in modernization and development. One of the commonalities that the 16th summit will build on is our belief in mutual respect for each member state and respect for the sovereignty of each nation and its people's right to self-determination.

The upcoming BRICS summit is expected to lead to a binding commitment from the leaders of the participating nations to establish mechanisms for deeper cooperation in trade, and to create technological and financial institutions that enhance exchanges. Additionally, these efforts will facilitate the transfer of skills and technology across member states.

The summit should also provide avenues to exponential growth in bilateral and multilateral trade among BRICS economies and enhance the competitive advantage of BRICS member states in global trade. More than anything, the summit should press for concrete solutions and mechanisms to end conflicts and make peace, as peace is an irreplaceable requisite for common development and prosperity.

Sithembiso Bhengu is the director of the Chris Hani Institute and a senior research fellow with the Sociology Department, University of Johannesburg.

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