The BRICS Don't Need a Bank of Their Own
They’ve been treated unfairly, but there are better uses of their time
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Leaders of the world’s biggest emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as the BRICS—approved the creation of a new currency reserve fund and development bank on July 15 at their summit in Brazil. Neither invention is much needed, but for the inventors, this is beside the point.
The five governments agree on one thing: They’ve been denied a proper say in running institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and in global economic governance more generally. They are correct to think so. Their mistake is to believe that the new bodies will put things right.