On May 14–15, Moscow hosted the 11th Annual Meeting of the New Development Bank. For the first time in 19 years, the annual meeting of a multilateral development bank was held in Russia. A distinctive feature of the event was the participation of new shareholders and potential members, including African countries. Africa was represented by official delegations from NDB member states — South Africa, Algeria and Egypt — as well as from countries seeking to join the multilateral bank, such as Zimbabwe. The high status of the event on the Russian side was underscored by an online welcoming address from Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin, as well as by the in-person participation of Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov,who serves as Chairman of the BRICS NDB Board of Governors. The meeting outlined the NDB’s key objective through 2031: supporting the technological development of BRICS member states and partners. The main points raised by the speakers included both broad conceptual approaches to defining the Bank’s priority areas and short-term tasks for the new decade.
A keynote plenary address was delivered by Professor at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs,who highlighted the steady trend of global deglobalization and stated, in particular: “We need a payment system independent of the dollar. In fact, this is already happening, and the NDB can play an important role in this process. It would be excellent if the ruble, the yuan and the Indian rupee played a leading role in the global financial system, as this would reduce vulnerability to geopolitical pressure.” At the same time, in his view, the African continent should be assigned a special role in NDB projects. The “African transformation,” as Sachs described it, should become a separate and important element of the Bank’s strategy. The professor rightly noted that Africa is the fastest-growing continent in economic terms and has the youngest population, which means that the potential for cooperation between BRICS countries and Africa is enormous. Africa needs support in consolidating its efforts to achieve the development and integration goals set by the African Union under Agenda 2063.
An important event was the announcement by NDB President Dilma Rousseff of the Bank’s new strategy, which, in addition to infrastructure projects, will focus on financing the technological and innovative development of member countries — a fundamental basis for state economic and political sovereignty.
In their remarks, NDB member states, represented by their finance ministers — Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Bangladesh, the UAE, Egypt and Algeria — supported the course toward the Bank’s digitalization and securitization, as well as the development of financing and sovereign borrowing in national currencies. At the final press conference, Anton Siluanov and Dilma Rousseff announced a large number of applications from countries wishing to join the NDB, as well as the effective admission of Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan as shareholders.
On the sidelines of the event, researchers from the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences held talks on priority areas of academic cooperation. In particular, PhD in Political Science and and Head of the Centre for African Strategy in BRICS at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Daria Zelenova discussed with representatives of the NDB’s independent expert community their assessment of the effectiveness of the Bank’s projects. Daria Zelenova also spoke with Russian financial analysts about the work of the Institute for African Studies within the BRICS framework and discussed Russia’s opportunities in developing alternative payment systems and their applicability on the African
