Members of the major emerging national economies group BRICS, with, from left, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, China's president Xi Jinping, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, Russia's president Vladimir Putin, and Brazil's former president Michel Temer at the BRICS summit in 2021.SA is set to host the biggest BRICS summit yet. Will bigger also mean more important?
The long guest list - which includes all 49 African heads of state and 11 political heads of global south bodies, including some controversial ones like Iran - indicates that this summit is... different. The reason is the changing geopolitical environment. As the world shifts from a unipolar one dominated by the US to a multipolar world in which China is rising, many countries in the"global south" seek new relationships. The"global south" refers to countries often described as"developing" or with a history of colonisation, but are not necessarily all in the Southern Hemisphere. Get 14 days free to read all our investigative and in-depth journalism.