Cameroon in search of new opportunities at BRICS summit.

In pursuance of this drive, the Head of State, President Paul Biya, has dispatched the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute, to the 15^th Summit of BRICS member countries. BRICS is a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The summit opens in Sandton-Johannesburg, South Africa, today. It will end on Thursday August 24. The Cameroonian delegation is part of representatives from at least forty countries across the globe invited to the summit.

Dion Ngute is head of a high-profile delegation, comprising the Minister of External Relations, Lejeune Mbella Mbella; the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development in charge of Planning, Paul Njukang Tasong; the Director of Cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Office, Balungeli Confiance Ebune and some technical advisers.

Dion Ngute and his delegation arrived the South African capital yesterday. He was received upon arrival by the country’s Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi and Cameroon’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Solomon Azoh-Mbi. 

This year’s BRICS summit is holding under the theme: “BRICS and Africa, partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive multilateralism”.

It is being staged amid an international context cloaked in several challenges. The constraints range from multi-polarisation, the emergence of new powers, challenges linked to the Russia-Ukraine war, COVID-19 pandemic recovery drive and the institution of the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA.

With President Paul Biya having adopted an approach of maintaining neutrality on key issues, advocating the respect of the sovereignty of countries and a multilateral diplomatic policy, Cameroon’s invitation to the summit is no surprise.

The PM Dion Ngute-led delegation is expected to make gains from the several opportunities and schemes that BRICS member countries have put in place to drive economic development. 

Cameroon is expected to thus enter new partnerships and strike deals that would help her attain goals outlined in the National Development Strategy, SND, 2020-2030 agenda.

Holding at a time when the BRICS is also pushing to expand its influence across the globe, with a keen eye on developing nations, the participation of the Prime Minister and other members of his delegation brings to the limelight Cameroon’s quest for fresh opportunities.

It is highly expected that Cameroon could find some common grounds of interest in BRICS members pushing for a reform of the international system, especially international organisations like the United Nations, UN, to give developing countries a voice.

The crusade falls in line with the observation of many African leaders at the Paris Conference on a New Global Financing Pact. 

During the Paris summit, African leaders did not mince words in calling for reforms within the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank among others.

Quest for new membership, stakes

BRICS leaders, alongside invitees to the summit, are expected to also review a call from China for the grouping to open to other emerging powers ad developing countries. 

Nations like Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Morocco, are said to have long expressed the wish to join the grouping.

China has since 2017 initiated the idea of BRICS Plus, which will absorb other countries that have increased ties with the grouping, since it came into being in 2010.

The New Development Bank, NDB, the financial institution of BRICS, has not also had a smooth ride. With the growing push within the formation to de-dolarise the international financial system, especially trade, the South Africa Summit is expected to come up with new resolutions. A payment system in a common currency is expected to be announced at the end of the Summit.

South Africa’s President says world increasingly fractured, complex

In an address to the nation on Sunday August 20, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaposa, underscored the need for the putting in place of a rules-based system in the face of multiple global challenges.

He said the 15^th “BRICS Summit is particularly important as it is being held as the world is confronted by fundamental challenges that are bound to determine the course of international events for years to come”.
The world, he said, has become “increasingly complex and fractured as it is increasingly polarised into competing camps.Multilateralism is being replaced by the actions of different power blocs, all of which we trade with, invest with, and whose technology we use”.
South Africa, Ramaphosa said, is pushing for “an open and rules-based global governance, trade, financial and investment system. It must be a system that does not depend on the exercise of power or unilateralism, but by the advancement of the interests of the peoples of the world”. 

A rules-based system, he maintained, will guarantee prosperity and industrialisation, noting that: “We seek to change the rules to be fairer but ultimately we want to promote an open system of economic and political relations”. 

It makes sense to note that a majority of invitees to the Summit are from African countries.