BRICS And Its Recently Acquired Youth Factor

History was made last week when the first ever BRICS Youth Summit took place in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. The event became the gathering place of over 200 young representatives from all five BRICS nations united by the common dream of creating a multipolar world. Throughout the course of 3 days the BRICS delegations worked on the creation of a resolution that was later presented to the heads of state at the seventh BRICS summit, held on the 8-9 July in Ufa, Russia. The main task of the delegates was to give their recommendations on the  possibilities of cooperation between the young people of the BRICS nations in the economic, political, cultural spheres and the sphere of science and technology and humanitarian cooperation.

Mikhail Korostikov, journalist at the Kommersant newspaper, gives a short outline of the first BRICS Youth Summit and what it could mean for the future development of the global geopolitical landscape. In the article Mr. Korostikov goes on to speak about Russia’s enthusiasm in the creation of multiple new platforms for discussion in the BRICS framework - the Civil, Academic and Youth forums all being examples. While Mikhail gives a good general idea of the procession of the BRICS Youth Summit, it should be further mentioned that the event served as a large-scale platform for the exchange of ideas, of which many fruitful discussions became the result.

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2763754

The participants of the Youth Summit were given the chance to discuss the possibilities of cooperation with professionals in their respected spheres. One of which is the economic group who had the opportunity to speak to Anton Inyustyn, the Deputy Minister of energy, who called upon the delegations to take initiate so as to create some sort of Energy Club among the young people of BRICS in the aim of strengthening intra-BRICS ties in the energy sphere. When asked his position about how compatible the further development of the BRICS energy policy and the idea of sustainable development are, Mr Inyustyn did not hesitate to emphasis that the development of the BRICS energy policy will undoubtedly mean  further advancement in alternative energy sources as well as the traditional ones.

So it would be only natural to ask what the point of a Youth summit is and why it is so crucial to have a youth representation within the BRICS framework? Taking into consideration that the BRICS countries count for over 42 percent of the world’s population and that India, China and Brazil are all in the top ten countries with the youngest population, its only fair to say that the youth have to be represented. After all as a group they are to numerous for their interests to be ignored.

It should also be said that besides that, engaging young people will inevitably lead to the creation of new ideas for intra-BRICS cooperation.