BRICS+ and Africa: what membership means in practice
South Africa has been a member for more than a decade; Egypt and Ethiopia joined in 2024. A briefing on what the grouping offers African economies, and what it does not.
BRICS began as a label coined by an investment banker and became a political forum. South Africa joined in 2010, giving the group its first African member. In January 2024, Egypt and Ethiopia joined as well, and the expanded grouping is now often called BRICS+.
What members get
The most tangible institution is the New Development Bank, set up by the founding members to finance infrastructure and sustainable development; it has an African regional centre in Johannesburg. Members also have access to a contingent reserve arrangement meant to help with short-term currency pressures, and to a forum in which emerging economies compare notes on trade and finance.
The trade question
For African economies, the appeal is diversification: more export markets, more sources of finance and more room to bargain. Supporters point to growing trade with the grouping's largest members and to discussions on settling trade in local currencies, which could reduce exposure to a single dominant currency.
The finance angle
African governments and companies borrow from many sources: multilateral banks, bilateral lenders, bond markets and, increasingly, development banks created by emerging economies. A wider menu is only an advantage if terms are transparent and debt is managed carefully. The test of any new lender is not its logo, but the interest rate, the maturity and what the loan builds.
Membership widens the options. It does not choose among them.
The limits
BRICS+ is not a customs union and has no common tariff, no common currency and no binding rules. Its members differ widely in size and interests, and decisions are taken by consensus. For a government, the value depends on what it does with the access: negotiating better terms, attracting investment into infrastructure and keeping its trading relationships balanced.
That is why the continent's own project, the African Continental Free Trade Area, remains the more important framework for most African firms. BRICS+ matters most as an additional door, not as a replacement for the one at home.
For readers, three questions are worth asking whenever BRICS+ is in the news: does an announcement change real trade flows, does it add to what African firms can borrow and on what terms, and does it strengthen or weaken the continent's own integration? The answers vary by country, and by year.