Looking Back On Ufa

With the 7th annual BRICS summit more than a week behind us and yet another declaration signed by the heads of state, it would be only fitting to take a look back at the results of the summit and make predictions on its possible impact on the ever-changing geopolitical landscape.

Probably the most important conclusion to be made after the Summit is that the BRICS we see today have come a long way from what they were. What started out as a simple framework for the promotion of economic cooperation now metamorphosed into a much more global organisation that deals with issues that cannot be considered entirely economic, although they have a noticeable impact on the economic development all of the member states. The initiative to create the BRICS Network University as well as BRICS University League clearly illustrates this - according to point 63 of the Ufa Declaration, the BRICS “note the direct interdependence between investment into education, the development of human capital and the improvement of economic performance”. Undoubtedly this process is to continue, and the BRICS will become even more of a universal organisation.

Furthermore, it should be mentioned that the BRICS are among those leading the way to the creation of a new international financial framework. At the 7th BRICS Summit in Ufa the long and tedious creation process of the New development Bank as well as the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement finally came to an end. Agreements ratified and documents signed, these new enlightened financial institutes, who are to be governed by the principal of absolute equality, are due to start functioning in the nearest future.

According to the well-known principles of fair competition, the more players on the market there are, the lesser the chances for the creation of a monopoly, which inevitably makes it harder to force ones economic and political interests upon others. Therefore the creation of numerous alternative financial institutions only means that the hegemony of the long-existing ones is going to be challenged. This essentially implies a shift to a fairer, and therefore more stable and sustainable global economy. Global economics and politics put through the prism of economic theory may just provide the solutions to the numerous disparities of the existing world order.