The upcoming 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, scheduled for 12–13 September 2026, will be a consequential test of whether an expanded BRICS can translate its political appeal into practical, institution-building outcomes. India’s chairship—framed as “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”—offers an opportunity to shift the grouping’s emphasis from declaratory diplomacy towards targeted delivery in finance, technology, development, supply chains and reformed multilateralism.
BRICS at an inflection point
BRICS arrives at its twentieth anniversary in a more contested international environment than at any point in its history. Geopolitical conflict, trade restrictions, debt vulnerabilities, climate shocks, disruptions to food and energy markets, and disagreement over the legitimacy of global governance institutions have combined to make the demand for a more representative international order politically potent.
Yet BRICS also faces a central contradiction. Its attraction lies in its diversity: it joins major powers and developing countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, with markedly different political systems, strategic relationships and economic structures. That diversity gives BRICS global reach, but it can also weaken consensus. The New Delhi summit should therefore not be judged solely by the rhetorical strength of its final declaration. Its significance will rest on whether it produces a limited number of implementable initiatives with financing, institutional ownership and measurable timelines.
India is well placed to steer such an agenda. Its approach has deliberately stressed a “Humanity First” orientation, alongside resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability. This formulation is politically useful because it does not reduce BRICS to an anti-Western platform. Instead, it presents the grouping as a vehicle for solving problems faced by emerging markets and developing countries: unequal access to capital, technologies, energy, food security, health systems and digital infrastructure.
Development agenda: from aspiration to delivery
The most important development issue before the summit will be the capacity of BRICS institutions—especially the New Development Bank (NDB)—to finance infrastructure and sustainable development at a scale that matches the rhetoric of South–South cooperation. The NDB has become the grouping’s most concrete institutional achievement, but its credibility will depend on how rapidly it can expand lending, mobilise co-financing and support projects in local currencies where feasible.
A useful initiative at the summit would be a BRICS Resilient Infrastructure Facility. Such a mechanism could prioritise projects with direct developmental and strategic value:
- Climate-resilient transport corridors, ports and logistics networks.
- Grid modernisation, renewable-energy storage and cross-border clean-energy partnerships.
- Water management, drought adaptation and climate-resilient agriculture.
- Urban infrastructure suited to extreme heat, flooding and rapid population growth.
- Digital connectivity for public-service delivery in underserved regions.
The point is not to establish another broad and vaguely defined fund. Rather, BRICS should identify a carefully structured project pipeline, make eligibility criteria transparent, and link financing to practical outcomes—reduced disaster vulnerability, improved access to power, lower logistics costs or expanded digital access.
The summit should also revisit the relationship between development finance and debt sustainability. Many developing countries require new infrastructure, but face high borrowing costs and constrained fiscal space. BRICS can add value by promoting greater availability of local-currency financing, improving access to blended finance, and encouraging development banks to share risk rather than merely replicate commercial lending. These steps would not replace the existing global financial system, but they could widen the options available to borrowing countries.
Finance, trade and economic resilience
Expectations of a rapid BRICS common currency should be treated cautiously. The economic diversity of the grouping, differences in monetary policy, capital controls, exchange-rate regimes and trade patterns make a common currency neither imminent nor necessarily desirable. A more realistic expectation is continued work on local-currency settlement, payment interoperability, trade-finance mechanisms and financial messaging arrangements.
This is where the summit can produce consequential, if less dramatic, progress. An expanded use of national currencies for bilateral and intra-BRICS trade could lower transaction costs and reduce exposure to third-country currency volatility for participating businesses. But it should be voluntary, commercially viable and supported by robust settlement systems—not framed as an ideological substitute for the dollar.
India’s experience with digital public infrastructure makes it particularly well positioned to propose a BRICS Digital Public Infrastructure Partnership. The objective should be to help member and partner countries build interoperable, secure and inclusive systems for identity, payments, document authentication and benefit delivery. The agenda must, however, address three conditions: national control over data, strong privacy protections and openness to different technological models. India’s chairship has already highlighted robust digital public infrastructure, resilient supply chains and technological cooperation as priorities, creating an appropriate foundation for such an initiative.
Trade resilience will be equally important. BRICS countries should look beyond headline trade figures and focus on supply-chain vulnerability in pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, food, critical minerals, semiconductors and clean-energy technologies. A BRICS Supply Chain Resilience Network could map risks, facilitate early warning, promote investment in diversified production capacity and support common standards for essential goods. This would be more useful than attempting to construct exclusive economic blocs. In a fragmented world economy, resilience means diversification—not autarky.
Technology and sustainability
Technology will be one of the summit’s most difficult but potentially productive areas. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, digital platforms and green technologies increasingly shape economic competitiveness and national power. The developing world risks becoming merely a market for technologies designed, governed and monetised elsewhere.
A BRICS framework on AI should therefore move beyond general calls for “ethical AI.” It should support affordable compute access, multilingual datasets, open research collaboration, training for regulators and public-interest applications in agriculture, health, education and disaster management. It should also encourage safeguards against algorithmic discrimination, digital exclusion and the misuse of AI for surveillance or cyber-enabled coercion.
The climate and energy agenda deserves similar pragmatism. BRICS states have different resource endowments and development needs; a single energy-transition template will not work. The summit should endorse the principle of equitable, nationally determined transitions while expanding cooperation on solar manufacturing, battery storage, green hydrogen, grid reliability, biofuels and climate-resilient agriculture. India’s official priorities include equitable energy transitions, energy security, agricultural resilience, disaster preparedness and integrated early-warning systems—all areas where joint action could yield visible public benefits.
The most promising sustainability outcome would be a BRICS Climate Technology Access Initiative. It could combine research partnerships, licensing support, pilot projects and concessional NDB financing for adaptation technologies. This would make climate cooperation more development-centred, especially for countries that face rising climate risks but lack affordable access to relevant technologies.
Governance and strategic balance
The political importance of the summit will also derive from its treatment of global governance reform. BRICS has consistently argued that institutions such as the United Nations, IMF, World Bank and WTO must better reflect contemporary economic and demographic realities. India is expected to continue placing reformed multilateralism at the centre of its chairship.
However, BRICS will be most credible when it advocates reform rather than replacement. The purpose should be to make multilateral institutions more representative, effective and responsive—not to build rival structures that reproduce the same exclusions in a different form. On UN Security Council reform, for example, the summit will need to navigate divergent national positions. Even so, it can make a strong collective case for expanding representation for Africa, Latin America and major developing states, while improving the Council’s ability to respond to contemporary conflicts.
The summit will also reveal how BRICS manages its expansion. Wider participation can amplify the voice of the Global South, but unlimited enlargement without clear rules could make the group procedurally unwieldy and strategically incoherent. New Delhi should therefore encourage transparent criteria for membership and partner-country engagement: geographic balance, commitment to multilateralism, economic relevance, capacity to contribute and acceptance of consensus-based decision-making.
In this respect, the BRICS Plus dialogue will matter almost as much as the leaders’ meeting itself. It can demonstrate whether BRICS is developing an inclusive network for development dialogue, rather than becoming a closed political club. Official indications suggest that the agenda will include global-governance reform and engagement with partner countries through the BRICS Plus format.
What to watch
Three tests should guide assessment of the New Delhi summit.
First, institutional delivery: Are new initiatives financed, assigned to responsible institutions and accompanied by timetables?
Second, economic practicality: Do agreements on payments, trade, infrastructure and technology solve real business and development problems, rather than merely signal geopolitical dissatisfaction?
Third, strategic inclusiveness: Can BRICS articulate Global South concerns without becoming defined primarily by confrontation with the West?
The most constructive outcome would be a summit that strengthens the NDB, advances resilient supply chains and digital public infrastructure, launches meaningful climate-technology cooperation, and gives new momentum to multilateral reform. India’s chairship can make BRICS more useful if it keeps the focus on practical cooperation among diverse countries rather than symbolic geopolitical positioning.
