The BRICS Coming of Age and the New Development Bank

Abstract

The robust economic growth of developing countries revived discussions about the need for a global financial architecture that is more representative of today's economic and political realities. The world is now markedly different from the moment the Bretton Woods institutions were created. The BRICS now account for a substantive share of global GDP, however, this was not reflected in equivalent voting power in existing multilateral institutions. As a response, they created institutions like the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Agreement (CRA), symbolizing a shift of economic and political power towards emerging countries. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the growing importance of BRICS countries as contributors to the global economy and to global governance. Using NDB as a case‐study, the paper explores the origins of the Bank and attempts to answer why a new institution was needed, elaborating on five practical examples in which NDB could contribute with innovations to the modus operandi of multilateral development banking. The authors argue that out of all multilateral development banks created in the past decades, the NDB has the largest potential to catalyze changes in the Bretton Woods institutions and to grow as an alternative to them.

The BRICS Countries’ Bilateral Economic Relations, 2009 to 2019: Between Rhetoric and Reality

“…There are, however, significant influences, as China's trade surplus for November 2020 was at a record of $75 billion. Fourth, the BRICS countries are cooperating via various NDB projects (see Cooper, 2017;Hooijmaaijers, 2021aHooijmaaijers, , 2021cSuchodolski & Demeulemeester, 2018;Viswanathan & Soni, 2017). In addition, the China-led AIIB and the BRI focus on economic cooperation and development financing and have a significant role for China (see Hooijmaaijers, 2021aHooijmaaijers, , 2021b.…”

“…Several features make that the NDB embodies something new (Hooijmaaijers, 2021a). This includes the key role of infrastructure and sustainable development tasks, country systems, equal voting rights, local currency funding, and execution speed (Cooper, 2017;Hooijmaaijers, 2021a;Suchodolski & Demeulemeester, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic also strengthened intra-BRICS cooperation, as the NDB focused on assisting the member countries in dealing with the crisis and following economic recovery, reflected by its Board of Governors approving an emergency line of up to $10 billion to assist the NDB's states (Hooijmaaijers, 2021c).…”

O Novo Banco de Desenvolvimento: um meio de exercício de poder para o BRICS

“…3 do Acordo Constitutivo, Xangai é a sede do Banco. Para tal abordagem vamos utilizar o método Qualitative Comparative Analysis -QCA (Rihoux, 2017;de Meur et al, 2006) comparando os locais de sede de 23 diferentes bancos multilaterais de desenvolvimento (BMD) identificados por Suchodolski (2018).…”

The Emulation and Adaptation of a Global Model of Clinical Practice Guidelines on Chronic Heart Failure in BRICS Countries: A Comparative Study

“…A remarkable achievement in this direction was the foundation of the New Development Bank in 2015, intended to provide loan conditions more suitable for many countries repelled by the conditions offered by the IMF or the World Bank. BRICS thus embodies an alternative vision of development, a vision distinct from those predominantly associated with the economies of the Global North [10].…”