The group of countries that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, or BRICS, has become a major player on the international stage. In 2018, the five BRICS had a combined GDP (PPP) of around US$44.1 trillion or approximately 33% of World's GDP PPP. The BRICS had an estimated 2018 population of 3.1 billion or approximately 42% of the world’s population. Thus, what happens in the BRICS countries has a huge influence in the world’s economic, political, social and environmental affairs.

The alliance of BRICS countries reflects their growing influence worldwide, and the proportional decline of the weight of the developed countries in the world economy. The GDP of the advanced economies (OECD countries with high income) had their proportion of the world’s GDP (PPP) dropped from 64% to 40% between 1990 and 2018. Emerging economies now comprise of three-fifths of the world’s economy, though their per capita income still lags behind of those in the rich countries. Understanding how the shifts in the economic activities from North to South has happened is important to analyze development outcomes and industrial policies. In the last three decades, BRICS partners have significantly increased their political, financial and economic influence worldwide. Some have become important aid donors to developing states and significant investors in both emerging and developed economies helping the shift in the economic activities.

The BRICS as individual countries and as a block has also emerged as strong players in the landscape of international development assistance (IDA). This raised many expectations of changes in the way IDA is carried out, where traditionally the multilateral organizations and rich countries had a leading role in defining and providing development assistance. The BRICS IDA follows different procedures and even definition of traditional international aid based on their own interpretations and past experiences with inflows and outflows of IDA.

Following the three previous symposia on “International Symposium on Development and Governance in the BRICS”, this Fourth Symposium aims to explore the varied dimensions of development change catalyzed by the BRICS.