International Civil Society Meeting on Future Strategies for Civil Society - BRICS Engagement

Since its first formal Summit in Yekaterinburg (Russia) in June 2009, the BRICs have had four Summits – second in Brasilia (Brazil) in April 2010, third in Sanya (China) in April 2011 and fourth in New Delhi (India) in March 2012. It was in December 2010 that South Africa was formally invited to join the collective to make it BRICS (from BRICs). All thedeclarationsemphasised many agreed upon areas of closer collaboration among the BRICS countries. Virtually all of these areasare of prime interest to civil society, both within and outside of the BRICS states. Several action steps have been agreed upon and/or will be looked into. These include meetings with business leaders, academic institutions, sports and cultural activities and joint meetings on finance and health matters. While this declaration paints a portrait of inclusivity, collaboration and outreach, there is no explicit reference to civil society.

FIM – Forum for Democratic Global Governance in Montreal, Canada launched the Civil Society-BRICS Engagement Initiative in November 2011. Although the project was housed within FIM, it was essential that the leadership of the project come from civil society within the BRICS countries. Towards that end, FIM and PRIA, India agreed to coordinate the initiative in collaboration with Polis Institute in Brazil, Isandla Institute in South Africa and Participation Centre in China. The primary objective of this initiative was to develop a strategy whereby civil society actors from within the BRICS countries can began to influence this key multilateral initiative. Following the first four official BRICS meetings there has been no evidence of a civil society component to the BRICS outreach. Thus the timing was right for civil society to take a proactive position.

The first planning sessions was held in Stockholm on 1-2 November 2011 with participation fromcivil society leaders from each of the BRICS countries. It was recognised from the outset that the BRICS alliance is new and, at best, partially understood, even by its own leaders. Therefore, civil society actors will consider working on two fronts from the outset. One will be how to best sensitise broad civil society within the BRICS countries to the importance and potential of BRICS. The second priority will be to identify appropriate entry points for influence within BRICS. These entry points could be issue-oriented where an issue of common concern allows for ready collaboration, or country-oriented where one or more BRICS members share the view that civil society engagement is necessary to achieve certain objectives.

Following the initial planning meeting in Stockholm, PRIA in consultation with FIM prepared a Briefing Note summarising the emergence, history, purpose and declarations from four official BRICS summits.