BRICS Academic Forum 2020 aimed to ensure a sustainable and fair world The BRICS 12th Academic Forum, was held within the Russia’s BRICS Chairmanship in 2020, covering topics within the three pillars of priorities announced by the Russian and host and offering a new vision to further development of the grouping.
The Russian BRICS Chairmanship in 2020 ran under the theme “Partnership for Global Stability, Common Security and Innovation Growth”. Prof. Siphamandla Zondi, Chair, South African BRICS Think Tank (SABTT), South Africa shared on the topic: Can BRICS be a Cohesive Agent for the transformation of Global Governance.
“BRICS has envisaged a reformed global governance and there’s an opportunity for fashioning new consensus, if relationships with the G77, NAM and negotiation forums at the UN are harnessed” said Prof Zondi.
Other speakers included: Dr. Aquina THULARE, Member, South African BRICS Think Tank (SABTT); South African National Department of Health, South Africa, Dr. André DE MELLO E SOUZA, Researcher, Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), Brazil, and Prof. Yuriy DUBININ, Professor, Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia, Moscow State Institute of International Relations under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia (MGIMO), Russia.
Since the establishment of the Forum, the BRICS expert community played the role of pioneers calling attention to newly emerging problems and drawing attention of the leaders to persistent issues of international agenda. The vast majority of proposed initiatives were endorsed at the top level and helped to
turn the association into an institute of global governance with a significant impact. By the third Leaders’ Summit, when South Africa had joined the grouping and BRICS was established, the expert track was formally institutionalized by setting up a network of research centers of the five countries.
In 2013, within South African BRICS Chairmanship, the heads of the national coordinating centers signed a declaration on the BRICS Think Tank Council (BTTC), which was subsequently endorsed by the leaders at the Durban Summit. One of the other important tasks of the BRICS academic community remains
that on monitoring the progress achieved by the five countries on the issues of common concern and looking into ways to enhance pentalateral cooperation of BRICS members at all levels. Thus, as a result of expert track of the Russia’s Chairmanship a number of important documents are prepared. Among those are the Assessment of the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2015-2020,Databank of the Best Practices on the Development of Remote Areas in BRICS Countries, BRICS Women Empowerment Toolkit to name but a few.
