The 18th BRICS summit was held in New Delhi on the 12-13 September 2026 under India’s chairmanship. Leaders adopted 140-point New Declaration, preserving consensus despite substantial differences among members over the Middle East, Ukraine and relations with major Western powers.
Framing a New Order
The declaration frames BRICS around a more representative international order, multilateral reform, economic and financial cooperation, sustainable development and greater participation by emerging and developing economies.
The Institutional Reality
The most important outcome is institutional; BRICS demonstrated that its expanded membership can still produce a common document despite divergent interests. At the same time, the carefully generalised language on major conflicts revealed a central limitation; the larger the group becomes, the harder it is to turn shared principles into unified geopolitical action.
Society
The 2026 BRICS Summit and the next five years
What does the New Delhi outcome mean for global governance, trade, finance, technology and geopolitics
Key Points
- The most important outcome is institutional; BRICS demonstrated that its expanded membership can still produce a common document despite divergent interests.
- Over the next five years, the most plausible effect is gradual movement toward a more plural and competitive international order: greater use of local currencies, more alternative financial channels, stronger bargaining power for emerging economies, deeper South-South trade, increased cooperation on AI and technology and continuing pressure for reform of institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and UN Security Council.
- BRICS is becoming harder to ignore, but it is also harder to unify.
