India Takes the BRICS Chair as an 11-Nation Bloc Looks for Practical Results

India’s fourth BRICS chairmanship comes at a very different moment from its first.

When New Delhi hosted the grouping in 2012, BRICS was still a compact five-country forum searching for institutional weight. In 2026, it is an 11-member grouping stretching across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, with a wider network of partner countries and an agenda that now reaches from finance and trade to artificial intelligence, health, energy storage, agriculture and urban transport.

That enlarged grouping will meet in New Delhi for the 18th BRICS Summit on September 12–13, 2026, under India’s chairmanship and the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

The summit will therefore be about more than another declaration on reforming global institutions. India has spent much of 2026 trying to push BRICS towards mechanisms that can be used — research networks, startup financing, digital platforms, logistics frameworks, health cooperation and new channels for trade.

From an Investment Acronym to a Political Grouping

BRICS began with an idea that had nothing to do with summits or diplomacy.

The term BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs in 2001 to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China as large emerging economies whose growing weight could reshape the world economy. The four countries gradually turned that analytical label into a political platform, beginning formal cooperation in 2006 and holding their first summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009.

South Africa’s entry transformed BRIC into BRICS and gave the grouping an important African dimension.

Its early political significance was sharpened by the 2008 global financial crisis. Brazil, Russia, India and China found common ground in arguing that institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank needed to reflect the rising importance of emerging economies. BRICS subsequently broadened its agenda to include development finance, trade, food and energy security, terrorism, climate change, technology, agriculture, labour and health.

The underlying argument has remained broadly consistent: the distribution of economic power in the world has changed faster than the institutions created to govern it.

BRICS Is Now an 11-Member Grouping

The biggest structural change came with the recent expansion.

BRICS today comprises Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. According to the government’s 2026 BRICS background paper, these 11 countries account for about 49.5 per cent of the world’s population, 40 per cent of global GDP and 26 per cent of global trade.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the expanded grouping from January 2024, while Indonesia joined as the eleventh full member in January 2025.

BRICS has also created a Partner Country category. Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam entered that framework during 2025.

The result is a grouping that now includes some of the world’s largest energy producers, manufacturing economies, commodity exporters, consumer markets and rapidly growing developing countries.

That diversity gives BRICS greater weight, but it also makes consensus more difficult. The interests of an oil exporter, a manufacturing giant, an African developing economy and a large Asian consumer market will not always align. India’s challenge as chair is therefore not simply to expand the forum, but to identify areas where cooperation remains possible despite those differences.

India Has Helped Build Much of the BRICS Architecture

India previously chaired BRICS in 2012, 2016 and 2021, and each chairmanship left behind a different institutional layer.

At the 2012 New Delhi Summit, BRICS leaders discussed the idea of establishing a development bank to finance infrastructure and sustainable development. That proposal eventually developed into the New Development Bank, one of the grouping’s most visible institutions.

The summit also advanced work towards what later became the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, intended to give member states access to short-term financial support during periods of external pressure.

By the time India hosted the Goa Summit in 2016, BRICS had moved beyond its original macroeconomic focus. Counter-terrorism, clean energy, health, agriculture, research and regional connectivity occupied a much larger place in the discussions. India also brought BIMSTEC countries into an outreach dialogue alongside BRICS leaders.

The 2021 chairmanship, held during the pandemic era, produced another set of practical initiatives. BRICS adopted a Counter-Terrorism Action Plan, advanced cooperation on vaccines and digital health and moved ahead with the agreement governing the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation, which allows members to cooperate in using satellite data for areas such as disaster management, environmental monitoring and climate applications.

The 2026 chairmanship builds on that institutional history, but its emphasis is noticeably more technological and implementation-oriented.

More Than 350 Meetings Before the New Delhi Summit

India assumed the BRICS presidency on January 1, 2026. By the time leaders gather in New Delhi, more than 350 meetings and high-level engagements across 25 Indian cities will have taken place under the chairmanship.

The discussions have continued under BRICS’ three established pillars: political and security cooperation, economic and financial cooperation, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. But many of the initiatives emerging from these meetings are considerably more specialised.

Agriculture is one example.

BRICS members have agreed on Centres of Excellence on Agro-Ecology, intended to support research and knowledge-sharing in natural, organic and regenerative agriculture. India’s ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research at Modipuram is to initially coordinate the initiative.

A separate BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture, initially coordinated by IIT Delhi, is intended to promote the use of artificial intelligence, geospatial systems, Internet of Things technologies and advanced data analytics in agriculture.

The grouping has also agreed on BRICS AGRIN — the Agro-Inputs, Genetic Resources and Information Network — as a voluntary framework for cooperation involving seeds, germplasm and agricultural inputs.

These are technical programmes, but they reflect one of the more consequential shifts inside BRICS: cooperation is moving increasingly into sectors where developing countries face similar problems but often lack shared platforms for research and deployment.

Health Cooperation Moves Beyond Pandemic Preparedness

Health is another area where the 2026 agenda has widened.

BRICS members launched a Mission for Healthy Lifestyle along with a roadmap running from 2026 to 2029. The focus is on prevention, public awareness and cooperation against obesity and other non-communicable diseases.

India is also playing a central role in a proposed mental-health network. A BRICS Training Hub Network and a network of Centres of Excellence are being developed, with NIMHANS serving as the coordinating institution from India.

Another expert group will focus on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine, covering research, academic exchange, regulatory standards, digital knowledge systems and the protection of traditional and indigenous knowledge.

For India, this creates space to bring public health, modern medical research and traditional knowledge systems into the same multilateral conversation rather than treating them as entirely separate tracks.

Skills, Energy and Cities Enter the BRICS Agenda

The 2026 programme also reflects the changing economic concerns of emerging economies.

BRICS CONNECT for Skilling has been created as a cooperation network covering employability, social security, women’s participation in the workforce, new technologies and digital public infrastructure.

In energy, BRICS members adopted guiding principles on energy storage and smart grids and launched a Digital Centre of Excellence intended to support policy exchange, capacity-building and pilot projects.

Urbanisation has received similar attention.

A BRICS Urban Mobility Hub is being established to support cooperation on sustainable transport. Members have also adopted voluntary principles for climate-resilient urban infrastructure and created a research and knowledge network dealing with urban planning and cross-border institutional cooperation.

These programmes may attract less attention than summit diplomacy, but they are likely to determine whether BRICS develops a practical identity distinct from othIndia Takes the BRICS Chair as an 11-Nation Bloc Looks for Practical Results

India’s fourth BRICS chairmanship comes at a very different moment from its first.

When New Delhi hosted the grouping in 2012, BRICS was still a compact five-country forum searching for institutional weight. In 2026, it is an 11-member grouping stretching across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, with a wider network of partner countries and an agenda that now reaches from finance and trade to artificial intelligence, health, energy storage, agriculture and urban transport.

That enlarged grouping will meet in New Delhi for the 18th BRICS Summit on September 12–13, 2026, under India’s chairmanship and the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

The summit will therefore be about more than another declaration on reforming global institutions. India has spent much of 2026 trying to push BRICS towards mechanisms that can be used — research networks, startup financing, digital platforms, logistics frameworks, health cooperation and new channels for trade.

From an Investment Acronym to a Political Grouping

BRICS began with an idea that had nothing to do with summits or diplomacy.

The term BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs in 2001 to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China as large emerging economies whose growing weight could reshape the world economy. The four countries gradually turned that analytical label into a political platform, beginning formal cooperation in 2006 and holding their first summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009.

South Africa’s entry transformed BRIC into BRICS and gave the grouping an important African dimension.

Its early political significance was sharpened by the 2008 global financial crisis. Brazil, Russia, India and China found common ground in arguing that institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank needed to reflect the rising importance of emerging economies. BRICS subsequently broadened its agenda to include development finance, trade, food and energy security, terrorism, climate change, technology, agriculture, labour and health.

The underlying argument has remained broadly consistent: the distribution of economic power in the world has changed faster than the institutions created to govern it.

BRICS Is Now an 11-Member Grouping

The biggest structural change came with the recent expansion.

BRICS today comprises Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. According to the government’s 2026 BRICS background paper, these 11 countries account for about 49.5 per cent of the world’s population, 40 per cent of global GDP and 26 per cent of global trade.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the expanded grouping from January 2024, while Indonesia joined as the eleventh full member in January 2025.

BRICS has also created a Partner Country category. Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam entered that framework during 2025.

The result is a grouping that now includes some of the world’s largest energy producers, manufacturing economies, commodity exporters, consumer markets and rapidly growing developing countries.

That diversity gives BRICS greater weight, but it also makes consensus more difficult. The interests of an oil exporter, a manufacturing giant, an African developing economy and a large Asian consumer market will not always align. India’s challenge as chair is therefore not simply to expand the forum, but to identify areas where cooperation remains possible despite those differences.

India Has Helped Build Much of the BRICS Architecture

India previously chaired BRICS in 2012, 2016 and 2021, and each chairmanship left behind a different institutional layer.

At the 2012 New Delhi Summit, BRICS leaders discussed the idea of establishing a development bank to finance infrastructure and sustainable development. That proposal eventually developed into the New Development Bank, one of the grouping’s most visible institutions.

The summit also advanced work towards what later became the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, intended to give member states access to short-term financial support during periods of external pressure.

By the time India hosted the Goa Summit in 2016, BRICS had moved beyond its original macroeconomic focus. Counter-terrorism, clean energy, health, agriculture, research and regional connectivity occupied a much larger place in the discussions. India also brought BIMSTEC countries into an outreach dialogue alongside BRICS leaders.

The 2021 chairmanship, held during the pandemic era, produced another set of practical initiatives. BRICS adopted a Counter-Terrorism Action Plan, advanced cooperation on vaccines and digital health and moved ahead with the agreement governing the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation, which allows members to cooperate in using satellite data for areas such as disaster management, environmental monitoring and climate applications.

The 2026 chairmanship builds on that institutional history, but its emphasis is noticeably more technological and implementation-oriented.

More Than 350 Meetings Before the New Delhi Summit

India assumed the BRICS presidency on January 1, 2026. By the time leaders gather in New Delhi, more than 350 meetings and high-level engagements across 25 Indian cities will have taken place under the chairmanship.

The discussions have continued under BRICS’ three established pillars: political and security cooperation, economic and financial cooperation, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. But many of the initiatives emerging from these meetings are considerably more specialised.

Agriculture is one example.

BRICS members have agreed on Centres of Excellence on Agro-Ecology, intended to support research and knowledge-sharing in natural, organic and regenerative agriculture. India’s ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research at Modipuram is to initially coordinate the initiative.

A separate BRICS Network on Digital Agriculture, initially coordinated by IIT Delhi, is intended to promote the use of artificial intelligence, geospatial systems, Internet of Things technologies and advanced data analytics in agriculture.

The grouping has also agreed on BRICS AGRIN — the Agro-Inputs, Genetic Resources and Information Network — as a voluntary framework for cooperation involving seeds, germplasm and agricultural inputs.

These are technical programmes, but they reflect one of the more consequential shifts inside BRICS: cooperation is moving increasingly into sectors where developing countries face similar problems but often lack shared platforms for research and deployment.

Health Cooperation Moves Beyond Pandemic Preparedness

Health is another area where the 2026 agenda has widened.

BRICS members launched a Mission for Healthy Lifestyle along with a roadmap running from 2026 to 2029. The focus is on prevention, public awareness and cooperation against obesity and other non-communicable diseases.

India is also playing a central role in a proposed mental-health network. A BRICS Training Hub Network and a network of Centres of Excellence are being developed, with NIMHANS serving as the coordinating institution from India.

Another expert group will focus on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine, covering research, academic exchange, regulatory standards, digital knowledge systems and the protection of traditional and indigenous knowledge.

For India, this creates space to bring public health, modern medical research and traditional knowledge systems into the same multilateral conversation rather than treating them as entirely separate tracks.

Skills, Energy and Cities Enter the BRICS Agenda

The 2026 programme also reflects the changing economic concerns of emerging economies.

BRICS CONNECT for Skilling has been created as a cooperation network covering employability, social security, women’s participation in the workforce, new technologies and digital public infrastructure.

In energy, BRICS members adopted guiding principles on energy storage and smart grids and launched a Digital Centre of Excellence intended to support policy exchange, capacity-building and pilot projects.

Urbanisation has received similar attention.

A BRICS Urban Mobility Hub is being established to support cooperation on sustainable transport. Members have also adopted voluntary principles for climate-resilient urban infrastructure and created a research and knowledge network dealing with urban planning and cross-border institutional cooperation.

These programmes may attract less attention than summit diplomacy, but they are likely to determine whether BRICS develops a practical identity distinct from other multilateral forums.

Startups and MSMEs Get Their Own BRICS Architecture

Some of the most interesting proposals under India’s chairmanship concern entrepreneurship and small businesses.

A BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal is being developed to connect small businesses, technology centres, industry associations, financial institutions and policymakers across member countries. It is accompanied by plans for a formal dialogue on MSME finance and a work programme aimed at helping smaller firms enter international markets.

The grouping has also established a BRICS Incubator Network, designed to link startups and incubators across member economies.

More significantly, members have proposed a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund to help finance early and growth-stage companies.

A separate BRICS Science and Research Repository is intended to provide a shared platform for scientific knowledge.

Taken together, these initiatives suggest an effort to build connections below the level of governments and large state-owned institutions. Whether the platforms eventually generate investment, technology partnerships or cross-border startup activity will depend on how effectively they are implemented after India’s chairmanship ends.

Trade Cooperation Is Becoming More Technical

BRICS has long spoken about increasing trade among members. The 2026 agenda takes that ambition into some of the less visible mechanisms that actually determine whether trade moves efficiently.

Members have developed a Logistics Supply-Chain Cooperation Framework, covering transport resilience, shipping, manufacturing ecosystems and sustainable logistics.

The grouping is also working through a Global Value Chains Action Plan for 2026–2030, supported by a proposed Technical Council and joint study.

Another important step is the in-principle approval of a BRICS Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters. The objective is to reduce transaction costs, improve trade facilitation, strengthen border security and tackle illicit trade.

National standards bodies from BRICS members have additionally signed a memorandum of understanding covering standardisation, technical cooperation and the reduction of barriers arising from incompatible standards.

For businesses, these areas can matter more than broad declarations about increasing trade. Customs procedures, logistics, standards and access to finance determine whether political commitments are converted into actual commercial flows.

An Expanded BRICS Faces a Harder Test

The political significance of BRICS has always rested partly on what it represents: a challenge to the assumption that institutions created in an earlier era can indefinitely determine how economic and political influence is distributed.

But expansion changes the nature of that challenge.

A larger BRICS has greater demographic, economic and geographic reach. It also contains more internal differences. Its members have distinct security relationships, trade priorities, regional rivalries and approaches to the international order.

That makes spectacular political unity unlikely. It also makes practical cooperation more important.

India’s 2026 approach appears designed around that reality. Rather than relying only on large geopolitical declarations, New Delhi has pushed a dense set of sectoral mechanisms — from digital agriculture and mental health to smart grids, startup financing, customs cooperation and urban mobility.

The value of those mechanisms will not be measured by how many are announced in New Delhi on September 12 and 13. It will be measured by how many are still functioning several years from now.

BRICS has already travelled a long way from the four-letter investment acronym coined a quarter of a century ago. The next stage of its evolution will depend less on whether it can keep expanding and more on whether an increasingly diverse group of countries can make that expansion useful.er multilateral forums.

Startups and MSMEs Get Their Own BRICS Architecture

Some of the most interesting proposals under India’s chairmanship concern entrepreneurship and small businesses.

A BRICS MSME Cooperation Portal is being developed to connect small businesses, technology centres, industry associations, financial institutions and policymakers across member countries. It is accompanied by plans for a formal dialogue on MSME finance and a work programme aimed at helping smaller firms enter international markets.

The grouping has also established a BRICS Incubator Network, designed to link startups and incubators across member economies.

More significantly, members have proposed a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund to help finance early and growth-stage companies.

A separate BRICS Science and Research Repository is intended to provide a shared platform for scientific knowledge.

Taken together, these initiatives suggest an effort to build connections below the level of governments and large state-owned institutions. Whether the platforms eventually generate investment, technology partnerships or cross-border startup activity will depend on how effectively they are implemented after India’s chairmanship ends.

Trade Cooperation Is Becoming More Technical

BRICS has long spoken about increasing trade among members. The 2026 agenda takes that ambition into some of the less visible mechanisms that actually determine whether trade moves efficiently.

Members have developed a Logistics Supply-Chain Cooperation Framework, covering transport resilience, shipping, manufacturing ecosystems and sustainable logistics.

The grouping is also working through a Global Value Chains Action Plan for 2026–2030, supported by a proposed Technical Council and joint study.

Another important step is the in-principle approval of a BRICS Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters. The objective is to reduce transaction costs, improve trade facilitation, strengthen border security and tackle illicit trade.

National standards bodies from BRICS members have additionally signed a memorandum of understanding covering standardisation, technical cooperation and the reduction of barriers arising from incompatible standards.

For businesses, these areas can matter more than broad declarations about increasing trade. Customs procedures, logistics, standards and access to finance determine whether political commitments are converted into actual commercial flows.

An Expanded BRICS Faces a Harder Test

The political significance of BRICS has always rested partly on what it represents: a challenge to the assumption that institutions created in an earlier era can indefinitely determine how economic and political influence is distributed.

But expansion changes the nature of that challenge.

A larger BRICS has greater demographic, economic and geographic reach. It also contains more internal differences. Its members have distinct security relationships, trade priorities, regional rivalries and approaches to the international order.

That makes spectacular political unity unlikely. It also makes practical cooperation more important.

India’s 2026 approach appears designed around that reality. Rather than relying only on large geopolitical declarations, New Delhi has pushed a dense set of sectoral mechanisms — from digital agriculture and mental health to smart grids, startup financing, customs cooperation and urban mobility.

The value of those mechanisms will not be measured by how many are announced in New Delhi on September 12 and 13. It will be measured by how many are still functioning several years from now.

BRICS has already travelled a long way from the four-letter investment acronym coined a quarter of a century ago. The next stage of its evolution will depend less on whether it can keep expanding and more on whether an increasingly diverse group of countries can make that expansion useful.

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