The New Delhi BRICS Summit and Africa's Position: A Geopolitical Risk Analysis

Executive Summary

At the 18th BRICS Summit, South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia gained a platform to call for the reform of global financial institutions. However, the expanded BRICS lacks the capacity to build consensus on political and security matters, as evidenced by the difficult negotiations over the Delhi Declaration, which stalled until the eve of the summit due to disputes over language concerning Iran. The African members' true motivation is not to form an anti-Western bloc but a pragmatic desire to access BRICS financing while preserving their Western partnerships. Given the New Development Bank's limited lending capacity, this is likely to yield only declarative results. Real bargaining power is instead shifting outside the BRICS multilateral framework, with bilateral initiatives from Russia and China—such as Putin's invitation to the October Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow and China's offers of Huawei AI chips and zero-tariff trade—shaping a more tangible competitive dynamic. South Korean companies and the government should maintain low-intensity monitoring of the BRICS multilateral channel while focusing on tracking Russia and China's bilateral cooperation projects in Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Africa, particularly watching for exclusive contract provisions in the telecommunications, energy, and financial infrastructure sectors.

I. Situational Analysis

The New Delhi BRICS Summit and Africa's Position: A Situational Analysis

1. Background and Developments

The 18th BRICS Summit was held from September 12–13 in New Delhi at the Bharat Mandapam [9]. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the bloc's founding [10]. India assumed the rotating presidency on January 1 [5]. The Indian presidency organized the summit's program around four pillars: "Resilience, Cooperation, Innovation, and Sustainability" [3]. Issues that generate significant disagreement among members, such as the war in Ukraine, de-dollarization, and Iran, were deliberately kept off the main agenda [3].

BRICS currently comprises 11 full members and 10 partner countries [10]. After its 2023–2024 expansion, which brought in new members such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran, coordinating interests among member states has become structurally more difficult [9][7]. Unlike the original five-member bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the expanded BRICS is divided on its positions regarding the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East [7]. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE also hold sharply divergent views on recent conflicts in the Gulf region [15].

The three full BRICS members from the African continent are South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia. These countries used the summit as a channel to challenge the Western financial order. The French-language media outlet Jeune Afrique assessed that the African members are pursuing a "pragmatic course of accessing BRICS funds without breaking with their Western partners" [1].

2. Current Situation

On September 11, ahead of the summit's opening, Prime Minister Modi held a bilateral meeting with President Putin [16][13]. Putin argued at the meeting that BRICS must build a "new growth platform free from Western rules" [16]. On the same day, Egyptian President el-Sisi arrived in New Delhi [11], where he was personally greeted at the airport by Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth [11].

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed spoke at the opening session on September 12. During the session, themed "Inclusive Global Governance and Multilateral Cooperation," he called for inclusive global governance [8]. In effect, the leaders of all three African member states publicly demanded the reform of global financial institutions while in New Delhi.

Negotiations for the adoption of the "Delhi Declaration" were fraught with difficulty until just before the summit began. According to The Hindu, negotiators continued to work on the wording late into the night of September 11 [17]. While most member states had agreed on the overall text, disagreements persisted to the end over language concerning the war with Iran, its connection to the United States and Israel, and Iran's attacks on facilities in the UAE and other West Asian countries [17]. This illustrates the structural limitations that make it difficult for the expanded BRICS to speak with a unified voice on political and security matters.

3. Key Actors and Positions

India (Chair) sought to strike a balance at the summit between deepening its relations with China and Russia and maintaining its partnership with the United States and the West [7]. The Turkish media outlet Hürriyet assessed that India is "weighing its relations with China and Russia against its partnership with the United States and other Western partners" [7]. President Xi Jinping's visit was his first since 2019 [5]. Germany's Deutsche Welle identified the summit as a move by India to expand its engagement with China and Russia at a time when its relations with the US remain in a difficult phase [5].

Russia has established strengthening relations with African nations as a key pillar of its BRICS diplomacy. While in New Delhi, Putin personally invited the leaders of South Africa and Egypt to attend the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow in October [12][14]. According to the TASS news agency, Putin stated that "Russia attaches great importance to the development of relations with African countries" and expressed his hope that the South African delegation would attend [14]. This can be interpreted as an effort by Russia, facing Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, to secure African countries as alternative diplomatic and economic partners.

China leveraged President Xi Jinping's visit to India to focus attention on the bilateral meeting between Modi and Xi. The state-run Global Times portrayed the summit as an opportunity for "BRICS expansion on its 20th anniversary," highlighting the attendance of top leaders from China, Russia, and Iran [10]. Separately from the BRICS forum, China's engagement with Africa has already deepened through a combined security, technology, and finance approach, including Xi's visit to Egypt, the supply of Huawei AI chips, and zero-tariff trade with 53 African nations [4].

Egypt, with President el-Sisi personally visiting New Delhi, pursued a pragmatic diplomacy by simultaneously exploring participation in both the BRICS and the Russia-Africa summits [11][12]. Ethiopia sought to secure a voice for Africa by having Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed use his public platform to call for multilateral governance reform [8]. South Africa leveraged its status as a founding BRICS member to maintain its presence on both fronts, receiving an invitation to strengthen relations with Russia [14].

4. Key Issues

The first key issue is the language in the Delhi Declaration concerning the Iran-Israel war, which exposed the divergent positions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE versus Iran [17][15]. The second is the dual-track approach of the African members, who are pragmatically demanding expanded development finance from BRICS while avoiding a break with the West [1]. The third is that Russia's outreach to Africa is proceeding on a separate, parallel track—the October Moscow summit—alongside the BRICS platform [12][14]. This illustrates a dynamic where the multilateral BRICS framework operates concurrently with bilateral courtship by individual major powers. Finally, India's management as chair is itself an issue. Its decision to exclude Ukraine, de-dollarization, and Iran from the agenda was a choice to prioritize the summit's outward success, but the fundamental disagreements among the expanded membership remain unaddressed [3][9].

II. In-Depth Analysis

The New Delhi BRICS Summit and Africa's Position: An In-Depth Analysis

1. Analysis of Root Causes

The assertiveness of the three African member states in New Delhi stems from a logical contradiction within the BRICS expansion itself. BRICS was originally a consultative body for five major emerging economies. The 2023–2024 expansion increased its membership to 11 [10]. This process brought relatively smaller economies like Egypt and Ethiopia to the same table as wealthy oil-producing states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The result is a structure where countries of vastly different economic scales share the common slogan of "inclusive global governance" [8].

The fundamental motivation for the African members is not ideology but access to finance. As Jeune Afrique pointed out, African countries have adopted a "pragmatic course of accessing BRICS funds without breaking with their Western partners" [1]. This diverges from the narrative of forming an anti-Western bloc. Both Egypt and Ethiopia are already participating in International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programs. For these nations, BRICS is not an alternative to the Western financial order but rather a complementary channel for funding.

Putin's outreach to Africa is driven by a different set of motivations. In New Delhi, he personally invited the leaders of South Africa and Egypt to attend the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow in October [12][14]. Amid Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, Russia has used the non-aligned stance of African nations in international arenas, such as UN votes, as a diplomatic asset. Putin's description of BRICS as a "new growth platform free from Western rules" [16] can be read as an attempt to pull Africa into this structure.

2. Structural Context

Political Structure: The Indian presidency deliberately excluded three major fault lines from the agenda: the war in Ukraine, de-dollarization, and the Iran issue [3]. This very exclusion exposes the structural limitations of BRICS. The topics on which members can reach consensus are limited to abstract development discourses such as resilience, cooperation, innovation, and sustainability [3]. On political and security matters, it is difficult to even issue a joint statement. This is evidenced by the fact that language in the Delhi Declaration concerning the Iran-Israel war was not finalized until the night before the summit's opening [17]. In a situation where members like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE hold directly opposing views on Gulf conflicts [15], the financial institution reform agenda pushed by the three African nations is one of the few common denominators that can be approved with relatively little controversy.

Economic Structure: The reforms to global financial institutions demanded by African members target the IMF's quota system and the World Bank's voting structure, where the voice of African nations is disproportionately small compared to their population and economic size. The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) has been positioned as an alternative to address this imbalance, but its actual lending capacity and capital are limited compared to the World Bank. What Egypt and Ethiopia hope to gain from BRICS is not a break from the existing order but rather increased negotiating leverage. Meanwhile, China is already making inroads in Africa through separate channels. Examples such as the supply of Huawei AI chips confirmed during Xi Jinping's visit to Egypt, zero-tariff trade with 53 countries, and cooperation with Tanzania on managing state-owned assets [4] illustrate a parallel structure in which China is expanding its influence through bilateral channels, independent of the BRICS framework. From the perspective of African nations, BRICS, China's bilateral initiatives, and Russia's separate summit effectively function as competing sources of financing.

Security Structure: South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia each operate with distinct security calculations. South Africa has maintained a non-aligned position on the war in Ukraine while continuing its defense and resource cooperation with Russia. Egypt, while a recipient of US military aid, pursues a dual-track policy of engaging with both Russia and China [11][4]. Ethiopia, facing Western human rights pressure after the Tigray War, desperately needs to secure legitimacy on the multilateral stage. What these three nations share within BRICS is not ideological alignment but a common need for an alternative channel for legitimation that exists outside the Western-led security and human rights framework.

3. Historical Precedents and Comparative Cases

The current inclusion of multiple African countries in BRICS is fundamentally different from the arrangement at the 2013 Durban Summit, where South Africa was the sole African representative. At that time, South Africa played the symbolic role of representing the entire continent in a "BRICS+Africa" format. Now, with Egypt and Ethiopia as separate full members, the divergent interests within Africa have been carried directly into the BRICS framework. The notion of Africa speaking with a single voice has effectively been dismantled.

A comparison with the Cold War-era Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is also instructive. NAM was a coalition of Third World countries that refused to align with either bloc in the bipolar US-Soviet system. The current posture of the African BRICS members follows a similar logic: avoiding alignment with a specific bloc in the context of US-China competition while seeking pragmatic benefits from both sides. The difference, however, is that unlike the NAM countries, today's African nations are pursuing a multi-alignment strategy, simultaneously tapping into multiple funding channels beyond BRICS, such as China's Belt and Road Initiative, US infrastructure initiatives, and the EU's Global Gateway.

A comparison with the 2024 Kazan Summit is also important. In Kazan, the meeting between Modi and Xi marked a turning point toward détente on the China-India border [2][6]. Similarly, at the New Delhi summit, Xi Jinping's visit to India was itself highlighted as the main point of interest [5][10]. There is a recurring pattern where the African agenda is treated as a secondary issue, overshadowed by US-China and China-India dynamics. The demands of African members also received little media attention in Kazan, and a similar pattern is likely to emerge in New Delhi.

4. Key Variables Shaping Future Developments

The first variable is the final text of the Delhi Declaration. Whether consensus is reached on the language regarding the Iran-Israel war [17] will serve as a litmus test for the political cohesion of BRICS. If an agreement on this wording fails, or if the issue is resolved with a vague compromise, the financial reform agenda demanded by African nations is also likely to remain purely declarative, lacking a concrete implementation plan.

The second variable is the level of attendance at the October Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow. The participation level of the South African delegation [14] and the actual attendance of Egyptian President el-Sisi [12] will serve as indicators of Russia's success in expanding its influence in Africa. The crucial question is whether the invitations made in New Delhi will translate into actual participation in Moscow.

The third variable is whether the New Development Bank substantially increases its funding. The real outcome of the summit will depend on whether the African members' demands remain purely rhetorical in the joint statement or materialize as a concrete increase in the NDB's lending limits for Africa or the announcement of new projects.

The fourth variable is the pace at which China's bilateral channels with Egypt and Ethiopia deepen. As evidenced by the supply of Huawei AI chips and zero-tariff agreements [4], China is already strengthening its bilateral ties with individual African nations outside the BRICS multilateral framework. The less effective the BRICS multilateral agenda is perceived to be, the more likely African countries are to place greater emphasis on their bilateral channels with China and Russia.