The BRICS and Africa: Political – Economic Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The BRICS is newly emerged post-Cold War bloc (an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) constituting heterogeneous countries of diverse political, economic, social structure and organization with different geo-spatial features, being the reason for raising the new scholarly polarizing “discourse on their geopolitical and geo-economics significance [since] 2009”. The BRICS represent “over 40% of the global population with the combined economic weight in 2015 equaled almost a third of the global GDP in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms (roughly equal with the G-7 countries), [ and they] are the newly emerging center of gravity in the global economic system”. The major objective of the study is exploring, explaining and analyzing the political-economic opportunities emerged and challenges posed on Africa’s overall development by examining the BRICSAfrica relation and its subsequent political and economic contribution on challenging and breaking the political and economic barriers of the Western dominated African economic system in the global economics where direct investment, market, aid, loans and funds are attached with strictly imposed Western political conditionality and their financial and monetary institutions which are the masters of the global economic management since the end of World War II. Methodologically, qualitative research approach was employed by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data in “exploring a problem and developing a detailed understanding of a central Phenomenon” generating “results either in non-quantitative form or in the form which are not subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis”, being exploratory, explanatory and analytical. The BRICS contributed political and economic opportunities, posing parallel challenges on Africa’s overall development, generating renewed interest from its traditional western trading partners out of fear of losing their long-held strategic and economic interests in Africa to the new rising Southern powers. Keywords: BRICS: Africa: Political: Economic Opportunities: Challenges: