BRICS Backers in Africa See Dollar-Light Payment Systems as Test of Financial Independence
At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, African experts and journalists are welcoming plans to strengthen local‑currency payment systems and reduce dependence on the US dollar and SWIFT. Supporters argue the expanded bloc, which now includes Ethiopia, gives the Global South a rare chance to shape how money moves across borders.
For many African delegates and commentators at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, the most important decisions aren’t about speeches or group photos, but about how payments will be made in the future.
A Kenyan legal scholar and former director of the country’s Anti‑Corruption Commission, Patrick Lumumba, told Russian media ahead of the summit that BRICS can help Africa reduce its dependence on the dollar‑based financial system and the SWIFT messaging network. He called for expanding the Pan‑African Payment and Settlement System and similar regional mechanisms so that trade can increasingly be settled in local or regional currencies instead of defaulting to the US dollar.
On the ground at the 18th BRICS summit, African journalists are picking up a similar theme. One South African reporter described BRICS as giving Africa “a voice it never had,” arguing that the bloc’s expansion gives the continent more say in shaping global economic rules. Sputnik Africa correspondents reporting from New Delhi said the Global South’s reaction to the summit’s outcomes and the Delhi Declaration was “overwhelmingly” positive.
Ethiopia’s participation has become a symbol of that shift. Sputnik Africa highlighted how Ethiopia’s move into BRICS is seen both as recognition of its status as host of the African Union and as a practical step at a time when its economy, like others, is under pressure from debt and currency swings. In this reading, joining a group that is openly debating alternatives to dollar‑centric payment channels holds out the possibility of some relief from those constraints.
For ordinary people in African economies, these technical debates show up in familiar ways: fuel prices that jump when exchange rates move, import costs that rise with every dollar spike, jobs that depend on whether local businesses can afford foreign inputs. If cross‑border payment systems can let a trader in one African country pay a supplier in India or Brazil using local currencies cleared through shared platforms, that could at least soften the blow of dollar volatility.
Leaders like China’s Xi Jinping are using the same summit to denounce protectionism, bloc confrontation and attacks on state sovereignty while talking up a more “multipolar” order. That message resonates with governments that feel constrained by existing financial structures and see BRICS as a potential counterweight, even as they recognize that power inside the group is uneven.
Behind the speeches is a slow experiment rather than a clean break. African enthusiasm reflects long‑standing frustration with the terms set by global lenders and the cost of borrowing in hard currency. BRICS is being presented as one way to start changing the plumbing of global finance so that more trade is priced and settled on terms chosen in the Global South.
The crucial test now is whether talk turns into systems and numbers. Signals to watch include specific BRICS commitments to fund interoperable payment platforms, concrete steps to widen the use of mechanisms like the Pan‑African Payment and Settlement System, and data showing whether major African economies actually begin settling more of their trade in local or partner currencies instead of the dollar.
Sources
- OSINT