by LUKE MONTGOMERY ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE high-powered Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from 31 August to 1 September 2026, was followed by a similarly high-powered 18th BRICS Summit from 12 to 13 September 2026, held at Bharat Mandapam, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India.
BRICS is becoming an increasingly powerful body for its role in rationalising global power and global trade.
The theme was “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”
The two-day summit provided an open session and exhibitions, amid tight security.
The summit was overshadowed by the Iran-US war, which became the talking point as the US had declared an Economic D-Day and threatened any country which continued economic dealings with Iran.
The summit paid no attention to US threats.
BRICS was formed behind the closed doors of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York in 2006.
The first BRICS summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009.
Today, BRICS is a serious body of eleven countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The list of attending global leaders included Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, Ugandan Vice President Jessica Alupo, Nigerian Vice President Sen Kashim Shettima, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung, Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Uruguayan Foreign Affairs Minister Mario Lubetkin, Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Belarusian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov, Bahraini Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Saudi Arabian Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to bless them.
African people see the formation of BRICS as reflecting unhappiness with the United Nations system led by the USA, particularly the UN Security Council, which is weaponised.
The BRICS summit adopted a 45-page, 140-point New Delhi Declaration, featuring major decisions on UN and global governance reforms, trade rules, counter-terrorism, financial reforms, and a new BRICS-proposed Troika arrangement and a secure digital payment system outside the US petrodollar SWIFT system.
None of these countries supported the US Economic D-Day on Iran, which was at the summit.
Instead, the summit advocated for reforms in global governance and the United Nations, amid a strong call for comprehensive UN reform, economic and financial system reforms, a demand for a fully functional World Trade Organization (WTO) trade dispute settlement system and an end to unilateral tariffs, non-tariff barriers and sanctions.
African countries welcomed the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to humanitarian restrictions and support for a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In summary, the BRICS Summit 2026 “produced one of the most comprehensive declarations in the bloc’s history, advancing reforms in global governance, trade, security, and institutional continuity.
The New Delhi Declaration reflects a unified push by emerging economies to reshape international systems towards greater representation and fairness, reflecting the growing influence of BRICS.”
The aftermath of the BRICS 2026 Summit is that the youthful populations of Africa are vocal, asking why all these countries attended, but Western Europeans and the USA were not there.
Does this mean the US is paying the price for the genocide of Palestinians?
Africans see that working with the USA is not a clever idea, as there is no respect for other nations, except Israel.
The younger generations of Africa have seen that friendship with the USA is problematic and that the future of the world is not in the hands of the political leadership in Washington.
This is a huge geopolitical shift, largely caused by the US pressuring South Africa to drop the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case, while nearly 80,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank were killed mercilessly.
Why would the US, or any other good leadership, support killing people, especially leaders of other countries? What kind of politics is that?
And the only country in the region to stand with the Palestinians is Iran, not any of the GCC countries. Then the US says Iran is the enemy; it does not make sense!
– CAJ News