Amid global crisis, top leaders to attend BRICS summit this weekend
Heads of state and government from BRICS member and partner countries, along with the United Nations Secretary-General, were confirmed to attend a BRICS summit hosted in New Delhi.
The Iranian President and the Russian President were among the confirmed attendees; a bilateral meeting between the Russian and Indian leaders was expected to cover defence and other issues.
The summit takes place against the backdrop of ongoing global crises, including conflict in West Asia, underlining the bloc's stated ambitions on global governance reform.
India holds the BRICS chairmanship for 2026, with the summit convened under the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability."
BRICS — Origin, Institutional Architecture, and 2026 Chairmanship
BRICS began as an informal grouping following a 2001 Goldman Sachs research term ("BRIC") describing Brazil, Russia, India, and China as major emerging economies. The grouping held its first formal summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on 16 June 2009. South Africa was invited to join in December 2010, after which the group adopted the "BRICS" acronym, formally joining at the 3rd Summit in Sanya, China (2011). Unlike the UN or WTO, BRICS has no founding treaty or permanent secretariat; it operates through a rotating annual chairmanship and consensus-based decision-making.
The New Delhi summit is being convened under India's rotating 2026 chairmanship, which is why the venue, agenda-setting, and invitee list (including UN leadership) are being coordinated by India.
BRICS Expansion — From BRIC to an 11-Member Grouping
BRICS expanded significantly in the 2020s, moving from a five-member grouping to eleven full members, reflecting the bloc's stated goal of representing the Global South and reforming multilateral governance institutions (UN Security Council, IMF quota reform, World Bank voting shares).
The 2026 summit is the first full-scale New Delhi-hosted gathering of the enlarged, 11-member-plus-partners BRICS, making coordination of a much larger and more heterogeneous invitee list (including Iran's president and UN leadership) a defining feature of this edition.
New Development Bank (NDB) — BRICS' Financial Arm
The New Development Bank, informally called the "BRICS Bank," is the bloc's flagship institutional achievement, created to reduce dependence on Western-led multilateral lenders (World Bank, IMF) for financing infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging economies.
Discussions on financial and developmental cooperation at the New Delhi summit build on the NDB/CRA architecture, and India's chairmanship theme of "resilience" and "sustainability" is typically operationalised through NDB project financing commitments announced at summits.
- First BRIC summit: Yekaterinburg, Russia, 16 June 2009; South Africa added 2010-11.
- Current full BRICS membership: 11 countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia).
- BRICS + partner countries: roughly 50% of world population, over 41% of global GDP (PPP).
- New Development Bank: agreed at Fortaleza Summit 2014, operational since 2015, headquartered in Shanghai; founding capital USD 50 billion (authorized up to USD 100 billion).
- India's BRICS chairmanship years: 2012, 2016, 2021, and 2026.
- 2026 summit theme: "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability," hosted at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.