The BRICS in Africa

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Promoting development? Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) nations have become a strong engine of South-South Cooperation. The most significant outcome of the emergence of BRICS is their shift to the balance of power in global affairs. The past decade has steadily accelerated commercial and strategic engagements between BRICS and Africa. The BRICS countries constitute Africa’s largest trading partners and new investors. BRICS has nourished Africa’s economic emergence and elevated the continent’s contemporary global positioning. This book seeks to determine the potential of BRICS-Africa cooperation in promoting African development. Some of the critical issues in this book include the following: a) What will be the impact of intra-BRICS and BRICS–Africa cooperation and partnerships, mainly through the New Industrial Revolution, financial technologies, infrastructure, economic growth and development in health; b) Determine the relevance of the BRICS New Development Bank in the post-COVID era; c) Examine the governance and accountability mechanisms required to entrench BRICS governance cooperation with the continent, and e) Determine strategies that address gender developmental disparities and inequalities in BRICS and Africa. This book consists of five sections, preceded by an introduction and, later, at the end of the chapters, a conclusion. The five mentioned sections respond to the 2020 12th BRICS Summit, ‘Global Stability, Shared Security, and Innovative Growth thematic thrusts.

Chapter 1: Introduction and General Overview

Section 1 – Governance in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Chapter 2: BRICS Governance and Ethics Architecture – Challenges and Prospects

Chapter 3: China -Africa Cooperation in the Post-pandemic era: Challenges and Way Forward

Section 2 – The Relevance of BRICS Multi-Development Bank Funding and Infrastructure Development

Chapter 4: BRICS development bank: a development finance model conducive to the strengthening of South-South Cooperation

Chapter 5: The BRICS, New development bank and African development

Chapter 6: Strengthening the BRICS Financial Cooperation Mechanism: Promoting Pragmatic Development

Chapter 7: Analysing BRICS Development Bank response to COVID-19

Section 3 – BRICS and Technology in Africa

Chapter 8: The Future of Work in South Africa

Chapter 9: Financing Renewable Energy Technologies in the BRICS

Chapter 10: Promoting Financial Technology Partnerships in BRICS

Section 4 – Addressing Economic Development Disparities and Inequalities in BRICS and Africa

Chapter 11: BRICS and Transformation of Africa’s Infrastructure in the COVID Era: Rhetoric and Reality

Chapter 12: Lessons in Sustainable Development for South Africa from BRIC Affordable Housing Policy

Chapter 13: Women entrepreneurs in the BRICS informal economy: A transformative agenda amidst the Covid-19 pandemic

Chapter 14: BRICS: Finding the Nexus Between Security and Development

Chapter 15: African Low-income Countries’ Leapfrogging and the Role of the BRICS Countries -A case study of Ethiopia and Rwanda

Section Five – BRICS and The Health Industry in Africa

Chapter 16: An Innovation Sharing Platform for Vaccine Research in BRICS

Chapter 17: Assessing COVID-19, and Telemedicine collaboration on energy and internet communication technology: Implications for Health in Africa.

Chapter 18: China-Africa health cooperation and its implications in the pandemic of COVID-19

Chapter 19: Resilience of Health Systems Towards Disease Outbreaks – COVID-19. A Comparative Analysis of South Africa and BRICS Countries Using the Global Health Security Index

Chapter 20: Conclusion: Way Forward on BRICS and Development in Africa

Dr Funeka Yazini April, Coordinator, BRICS Research Centre works at the Human Science Research Council with expertise on mineral industrialization. Dr April has several publications which include the following edited books: Yazini April, Chris Alden, Garth Shelton and Hu Biliang (ed). FOCAC 2018: Agricultural Modernization and Industrialization. AISA Press: Pretoria. Published 2018; Yazini April and Emmanuel Sekyere (ed). Economic Development, the Role of a Developmental State: South Africa and South Korea. AISA Press: Pretoria. Published 2019; Yazini April, Garth Shelton and Li Anshan. FOCAC 2015: A New Beginning of China-Africa Relations (ed), AISA Press, Pretoria. Published 2015 and; Yazini April and Garth Shelton. Perspectives on South Africa-China Relations (ed). AISA Press, Pretoria. Published 2013; and Yazini April and Li Anshan(ed). The Politics of Human Resource Development. AISA Press, Pretoria. Published 2012

Dr April, who completed her PhD at the University of Limpopo, South Africa, has published over 40 book chapters, policy briefs and journal articles, such as South Africa’s Governance Challenges: Assessing the South Africa-China Mineral Case, Routledge Journal of Contemporary Politics. She served as an African Union-ECOSOCC Infrastructure Committee member in 2019 and was nominated as the African Union-ECOSOCC Research and Advisories Coordination Committee Secretary 2019. She led the AU-ECOSOCC in publishing a paper in the AU ECHO 2019 on “Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa. She is a financial recipient of the 2018 China-Africa Joint Research and Exchange project and has been a Visiting Scholar at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations and the China Academy of Social Sciences. Finally, Dr April has undertaken industrial fieldwork studies sponsored by the South African and Chinese governments at various mines in South Africa, and mining companies in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Professor Modimowabarwa Kanyane is the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Management, Commerce and Law at the University of Venda and former Divisional Strategic Lead and Research Director at the Human Sciences Research Council. He is a renowned researcher in South Africa who has an extensive range of experience in public ethics, accountability and public service delivery, local government, and intergovernmental relations within the broader field of Public Administration, Management and Development. Professor Kanyane led research on Local Government for 10 years at the Human Sciences Research Council, largely with SALGA, LGSETA and COGTA. He also participated in BRICS activities as SABTT Chair of the Political and Economic Governance Cluster and various fourth industrial revolution discussions. He obtained a Doctorate in Administration from the University of Pretoria and received a Certificate in International Economic and Financial Negotiations from the International Institute of Public Administration in France. He has published over 100 scientific academic and research outputs, including client reports, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles. He reached over 100-mark participation in local and international conference activities, culminating in outstanding publications in peer-reviewed and accredited journals. His most recent book, edited by Mzo Sirayi, Modimowabarwa Kanyane & Giulio Verdini (2021), Culture and Rural-Urban Revitalization in South Africa: Indigenous Knowledge, Policies and Planning, was published by Routledge in London. He has recently published one more book, Gregory Houston, Modimowabarwa Kanyane and Yul Derek Davids (ed) (2021) Paradise Lost: Race and Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Brill Publishers: The Netherlands. Published June 2022.

Prof Kanyane scooped two HSRC Senior Research Excellence Awards in 2015 and 2018 and has extensive experience as a social research scientist in public administration and governance, having worked there for more than twenty years.

Dr Yul Derek Davids is a Research Director at the HSRC and an Advisory Member of the Department of Applied Legal Studies at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Dr Davids previously worked at the Institute for Democracy (Idasa) from 1999 to 2005, where he managed the Public Opinion Service (POS) and the Afro-barometer survey project. Dr Davids also did consultancy work for Management Systems International (MSI) in Nigeria, USAID in Tanzania as well as for the International Foundation for Elections Systems (IFES) in Uganda. Recently, Dr Davids mostly researched poverty, well-being and quality of life by employing public opinion surveys. Currently, Davids manages the State of the National (SON) book publication. Derek has published extensively and co-edited the South African Social Attitudes 2nd Report: Reflections on the Age of Hope book (2010). Dr Davids is also co-editor of Paradise Lost: Race and Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Brill Publishers: The Netherlands. Published June 2022. Dr Davids contributed to the HSRC University of Johannesburg COVID-19 Democracy Survey project from 2020 to 2022, which culminated in the publication of a series of reports, newspaper articles and media appearances that informed the policy debate on COVID-19 and the impact of the national lockdown. Dr Davids’s latest journal article in the Policy & Governance Review focuses on “A Comparative Policy for the COVID-19 Emergency Management of Frontline Health Workers in Selected African Countries”.

Krish Chetty is a Research Manager at the Inclusive Economic Development Division of the HSRC. He holds a Masters Qualification in Knowledge and Information Management from the University of Stellenbosch) and is a PhD candidate at Nelson Mandela University in the Computer Science Department. His core research interests lie in the social applications of innovative technologies that contribute to eradicating poverty, inequality and unemployment. His works span Knowledge Management, Digital Inclusion, Platform Economies, Financial Technologies and Renewable Energy discourses. He previously worked in the HSRC’s BRICS Research Centre, representing the HSRC and South Africa in several BRICS academic events. His recent publications cover subjects such as digital literacy, income inequality, online learning, renewable energy contributions to economic development and FinTech partnerships in BRICS.