BRICS Foreign Ministers Brazil Meeting: What is Uganda’s Status?

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By Benjamin Musanjufu Kavubu

On Monday, April 28, BRICS foreign affairs ministers met in Brazil and were hosted by Mauro Vieira, their counterpart. They gathered in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the group's role in addressing global and regional crises and their common response to the trade war with the United States. Uganda’s foreign affairs minister did not make the trip.

On January 1^st 2025, Uganda became a partner state of BRICS, as part of its journey to join the organisation. While there was excitement both in Uganda and across the continent, it’s very vital to go about this development with realism and pragmatism.

There is a new process in place to become a member of the BRICS. Since the 3^rd BRICS summit when South Africa joined in 2010, there were no additions to that formation until 2024 when the Arab Republic of Egypt, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates, Republic of Indonesia and Islamic Republic of Iran joined something that spurred the global South as a multilateral world was being birthed.

During the 16^th BRICS summit in Kazan Russia, a framework was put in place to ensure those sovereign countries that found it logical to join were able to. At the moment, a state must first be an observer state and fortunately, Uganda never underwent this phase because it was prior to the Kazan developments, instead, it acquired the partner states status and then the final stage will be member state.

Uganda’s journey to join BRICS started on 11^th November 2024 when the foreign minister Jeje Odongo Abubakher met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, who extended a formal invitation for BRICS partner state status along with 13 other countries.

By January 1^st 2025, Kampala had met the criteria that was put in place in the Kazan Summit in 2024. This implied that Uganda had proved herself as a partner and was ready to start the integration phase as a member state.

The criteria has aspects like economic stability, geopolitical alignment, institutional reforms and consensus approval from the existing member states. The 10^th member to be admitted, Indonesia was averaging an annual economic growth of about 5% before it proved itself for membership status. Geopolitically, a partner state should commit to the organisation’s tenets, like equal sovereignty.

Countries should comply with the forum’s financial and governance standards like anti-corruption measures, and in the past, Brazil was able to veto Venezuela’s bid over electoral disputes. Most likely, Uganda’s magic bullet will be its strategic location in East Africa as a trade gateway for the other members of BRICS and its historical role in the global South.

There are incentives that will motivate Uganda along with the other 8 countries that attained partner state status in January 2025, to strive for Member state status. BRICS is not anti-West, but instead it’s an outfit that is taking up the gap of the post-West-dominated world.

For Uganda to move from partner state to a Member of the BRICS, a number of strategic wins are on the horizon, from economic outlook to geopolitical and development space. Uganda, will have access to the New Development Banks (NDB), the famous BRICS bank. The financial institution offers alternative funding to specific infrastructure projects with better loan repayment as opposed to the IMF and World Bank.

Members of BRICS have direct access to the markets of other members which offer economic diversification. Uganda can look up to growth of its agriculture and mineral export with an already boom in coffee output and expected Petroleum production.

On the economic front, BRICS is also trying to come up with a framework that is Western sanction-proof with lower dependency on the US dollar, something that can also stabilise the Ugandan Shilling if membership status is attained.

Member states of BRICS also have the opportunity to work together on technology transfer, on renewable energy, for example, under the new Environmental Working Group that was put in place during the Kazan Summit in 2024.

Collaborations on such aspects can bring about a robust industrial phase that the global South needs to undergo. Geopolitically, BRICS membership offers huge leverage diplomatically, especially when it comes to the United Nations setup and the need for reform, including more African representatives, especially on the sticking issue of the security council and the unjust veto power factor.

For Uganda to be more pivotal and influential in East Africa, BRICS membership would go a long way to facilitate its position as a regional power house, which is already a key player in Somalia’s rebuilding and the establishment of the sovereignty of South Sudan as a new country in the world. BRICS has proved itself a balancing force that has seen China and India, considered to be global rivals, work together, this can give a chance to Uganda to widen its foreign policy beyond the established world hegemony and former colonial masters.

The beauty is that the partner status phase of the BRICS gives Kampala the flexibility to maintain its western alliances with Washington and Brussels but at the same time being watchful of over-reliance on any side, which is the essence of multipolarity. The stage is also a time to align with the BRICS core principles while safeguarding national and Pan-African interests on the way to Member status.

For now, the path is set and clear in the Kazan Summit declaration of 2024 on how Uganda can attain full member status of BRICS and the work should be cut out for the respective government department, agencies and ministries to cross the line.

Membership Status will bring about academic cooperation and research which is vital for innovation, there a global South common interests, a promising acceleration of nuclear power output to change the energy sector, BRICS members have demographics that transition to a market for what could take up Uganda’s potential agricultural output and most importantly membership status will provide equality among the sovereign nations for starters in the formation and in the long run at the United Nation.

The writer is a research fellow at Development Watch Centre.