Twenty five years ago, Brazil, Russia, India and China were emerging economies. Today, they are central to the global economy, especially China and India. The world has changed dramatically since I coined the “BRIC” acronym, but one thing is clearer to me than ever: the biggest challenges we face cannot be solved by individual countries, or by competing blocs of countries, acting alone. Whether it’s artificial intelligence, climate change, energy security or the future of the global economy, these defining issues demand countries come together to agree effective global cooperation. 

A quarter of a century on, I believe we must go further and faster, together.

Back in 2009, BRIC went from acronym to real life politics. The countries formed an alliance and gained a voice on the international stage. It was not long after president Bush had given a kickstart to a dormant G20 to try and halt the global financial crisis. Bush knew that countries across the globe needed to work together if solutions were to be found, and pragmatic progress made.

So, the BRICS concept (South Africa later joined) gained visibility and credibility. Important symbolism, but beyond the establishment of the New Development Bank, I fear they’ve not done much else.

Indeed, very often it seems our international bodies pursue their own independent paths on big global issues, despite the rather obvious reality that unless they can work together, genuine global challenges cannot be met.

This is why we have now established “BRICS + THINKING” to bring together the best brains and deepest expertise. There are many considerable genuine global challenges, and we are focused on supporting the best academic research to propose specific policies to deal with them.

Our first four papers will be published in the next four weeks: on Western core values towards the BRICS + countries, AI and Global Governance, Rightsizing the China threat, and the idea of a BRICS currency. By early next year, there will be others including but not limited to global infectious diseases, climate change and alternative energies.

We believe thanks to new technology, the idea of a BRICS currency, contrary to some previous views, including mine, is now actually possible. A new “currency” could make it easier and cheaper for BRICS countries to make cross-border payments. It would not be intended to replace or compete with the dollar, but to complement it. It could represent a major stimulus for greater trade between BRICS countries. This would be especially important for China and India as dramatically boosted trade between them would have the potential to be very good for the rest of the world too.

Such a development would demonstrate a fresh level of seriousness about the BRICS group and if carefully explained and positioned, shouldn’t be seen as a threat to the role of the dollar.

The broader question about the ongoing dominance of the dollar in the global monetary system will persist despite this potential new kid on the bloc. As unless the BRICS leaders go much further and adopt a common currency inside their countries like the euro, with its own central bank determining monetary policies, this initiative would have a limited, albeit important and significant role.

It seems most unlikely that BRICS leaders have the appetite for such a monumental change like that unleashed by the euro. In any case, their economies show few aspects of the criteria for an optimal currency zone, and without much bigger trade between them and a more similar level of GDP per head, this could be dangerous.

All of this said, it is difficult to see how the dollar can maintain its scale of dominance indefinitely. As is plain to see under this president, the US is struggling to maintain many of the features that help sustain such a dominant currency, and if the larger emerging economies continue to grow their absolute and relative share of global GDP, eventually some changes to the global monetary system would surely be inevitable.