BEIJING — When it comes to major distributors of foreign aid, entities like the United States and the European Union typically come to mind. However, newly industrialized nations have also come together to set ambitious goals to eradicate poverty. BRICS is an abbreviation for the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
According to the United Nations, BRICS is “well-positioned to take a leading role” in wiping out wide-scale hunger by 2030. These countries can achieve enormous progress in relieving hunger because together they produce one-third of the world’s cereal products; Russia is now the biggest wheat exporter on the globe.
The U.N. cites Fetsa Tlala, South Africa’s program to help small farmers expand cultivated land for food production. Although BRICS has the power to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the question is if they could come together and make it happen.
With Brazil going through a terrible recession and Russia’s conflicting political landscape, BRICS is looking less and less sustainable. Even finance company Goldman Sachs, who coined the original term, pulled its investments from the organization after it dropped 88 percent of its asset value since 2010. Some news outlets are even saying the “BRICS era is over,” predicting that China would be the next economy to go through a major recession. Chinese President, Xi Jinping, says otherwise.
Heads of delegations from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa met with Xi at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in Beijing. There, they said that the organization would enter a new “golden decade.” He also said that cooperation and communication between the nations in BRICS have improved.
BRICS has seemed to change objectives from ending world hunger to ensuring world security. Though, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says that advancing the living conditions of countries with the potential to turn into developing economies remains the focus of the organization.
– Vicente Vera
Photo: Flickr