Global Studies Review

BY EVA BUSZA¹

In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of a core group of states from the Global South which are on track to become the future center of global economic dynamism and power: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS).² Today, these countries account for approximately 40 per cent of the world population and by 2020 it is estimated that they are likely to account for close to 50 per cent of global gross domestic product growth.³ Their ascendance has coincidently corresponded with a second global trend: the emergence of a new category of transnational threats, which jeopardize global security, stability and prosperity.⁴ They include, for example, climate change, disease, terrorism, international crime, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These issues are not only global in nature, affecting everyone everywhere, but they are also contagious. They are complex and their impact is felt across many sectors. As a result, unilateral or even bilateral attempts to address them are unlikely to be effective. They require multilateral support and engagement by developing and developed powers alike.

This article focuses on the attitude and behavior of the pivotal BRICS powers towards addressing these global challenges through the multilateral platform of the United Nations.⁵ More specifically, it looks at their role in providing global public goods of health and counter-terrorism.⁶

PIVOTAL POWERS  AND THE GLOBAL THREAT OF TERRORISM
Counter-terrorism has long been a highly sensitive area for international collaboration.  Prior to 9/11, to the extent that there was international cooperation, it tended to proceed within the context of bilateral assistance programs or in the context of regional security arrangements. Many countries of the Global South saw it as part of a western agenda that fed divisions and encouraged ethnic, religious, and racial profiling. In the aftermath of 9/11, attitudes began to change. There was pressure on the United Nations to more actively engage in this issue. Security Council Members called for the United Nations to create an architecture to help Member States identify measures they might take to better protect themselves.

Two weeks after 9/11 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1373 which obliged member states to enhance legislation, strengthen border controls, coordinate executive machinery and increase cooperation in combating terrorism.⁷ 

Then in 2004, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1540 which mandated all states to refrain from providing any form of support to non-state actors that attempted to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer, or use nuclear chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery. The resolution created a committee of the Security Council to report on the implementation of these provisions and called on states with the capacity to do so to assist states needing help to develop the legal and regulatory infrastructure for fulfilling these requirements.⁸

Notwithstanding a growing recognition in both the North and South that terrorism was a global threat, there was some resistance among non-Security Council members, to a regime that in their view had not gained the buy-in of the entire system.  Some raised concerns about the legitimacy of the Security Council dictating measures that in their view challenged national sovereignty norms.

In order to address this issue, the United Nations Secretary-General in 2005 initiated a process for developing a more comprehensive approach to counter-terrorism that would have the commitment of all states, particularly those belonging to the Global South. Rather than locating this effort within the Security Council, the Secretary-General placed the initiative squarely within the broader General Assembly.

After a year of intensive negotiations, 192 Member States adopted the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy on 8 September 2006. It rests on four pillars: measures to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, measures to prevent and combat terrorism, measures to build states’ capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and to strengthen the role of the United Nations system, and measures to ensure respect for human rights for all and the rule of law as the fundamental basis for the fights against terrorism.⁹

Governments, international organizations, civil society organizations, and the private sector have mobilized and coordinated their efforts around the Global Strategy. The strategy has catalyzed important collective efforts to impede money laundering, protect human rights, counter terrorist use of the internet, and support victims of terrorism around the world.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa have all supported the Global Strategy.  There is some variation in terms of the degree of their engagement with the strategy. China and Russia, both permanent members of the Security Council, have been the most active in support of multilateral institutions to counter-terrorism. Both have identified terrorism as a threat to their national security. Both have emphasized that United Nations member states and the United Nations Security Council should play a lead role in countering terrorism.

Over the past five years, India’s engagement in the multilateral effort to address terrorism has increased. Prior concerns about international engagement threatening sovereignty seem to be waning. The various cross-border threats and terrorist incidents that India has experienced have probably contributed to its playing a more proactive role in using the platform of the United Nations to address terrorism. As a result, in recent years India has sponsored United Nations resolutions and has been an important contributor to the work against terrorist financing.

Brazil and South Africa to date have been more cautious in their engagement on counter-terrorism in the global multilateral arena. This may be due to a couple of factors. First, terrorism may not be seen as a top priority compared to other threats facing them and their regions like poverty, crime, and resource scarcity. In support of this view, in analyzing the attitude to terrorism in South Africa, Eboe Hutchful writes that violence is seen as the result of ethnic divisions, poverty, lack of governance and struggle over natural resources rather than of terrorism.¹⁰ Second, as these countries do not have a long history of engagement with terrorism, it is possible that they do not feel that they have a large reservoir of expertise and capacity that that they can share with other countries.

Nevertheless, both Brazil and South Africa have become involved in regional efforts through their support of counter-terrorism initiatives within the Organization of American States and African Union, respectively.  Russia, China and India, have also been active supporters and participants in regional initiatives to counter –terrorism, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

PIVOTAL POWERS AND THE GLOBAL THREAT OF DISEASE
The identification of disease as a potential security threat is relatively new.  In 2004, the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change panel report, drew attention to the devastating impact of disease on world populations. Citing the rapid progress of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and the dangers of the rapid spread of new pathogens like SARS¹¹, the report articulated what was increasingly being acknowledged by policy-makers around the world:  a weak global health system was an international security threat.¹²

In 2005, the member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) made comprehensive revisions to the 1969 International Health Regulations in order to strengthen cooperation between states to prevent outbreaks of infectious disease.

States agreed to immediately report outbreaks of disease, develop national response plans and ensure coordination between hospitals, health professionals, non-governmental organizations, and government health agencies, particularly at borders and points of entry. They also agreed to support anti-malaria efforts, education and healthcare and committed to financing development projects in the health sector.¹³

Global health has emerged as a less sensitive issue for engagement by the pivotal powers of the Global South. Health is recognized as a high priority across the board, although countries vary in terms of whether they frame it as a development issue or as a security issue. Thus for example, Brazil insists that health should be approached from the perspective that it is a human right.¹⁴

Today’s role of BRICS in the global health arena—particularly their engagement on a number of development-related issues—reflects the ambiguity of their status as pivotal powers. They are both recipients of assistance and global providers of the public good.  There is no question that these countries want to have a larger say in policy and are eager to provide leadership. Yet, ,they also seem cautious in terms of being seen as joining the ranks of donor countries.

When one speaks to policy-makers from these five countries, they are quick to emphasize that they come from developing countries, as reflected by the pockets of poverty at home and by per capita incomes.  This is particularly clear in the case of South Africa. While it would seem that South Africa could play an important leadership role in Africa on global health, the government is moving slowly, focusing first on problems at home.¹⁵ Nevertheless, South Africa made a pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. It has also taken a lead role, along with Brazil and five countries both from the North and the South, in the Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative—an initiative acknowledging health as a pressing foreign policy concern and aiming to find ways to deepen the understanding, strengthen synergies and capture opportunities for action.¹⁶

The BRICS have been active supporters of multilateral engagement through the WHO, the World Bank and other United Nations structures and have not been reluctant to take on leadership roles. Thus, for example, China, with the European Commission and the World Bank, hosted the International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Influenza (17-18 January 2006). Brazil led the negotiations of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in the WHO and Russia hosted the WHO regional committee for Europe last year.

Brazil, Russia, India and China have contributed to capacity building in the Global South, and have been doing so for several decades—although, with increasing intensity in recent years. While they do provide some capacity building through multilateral channels, the preference for now is to use bilateral channels.¹⁷ Thus, for example in the past decade, China has increased its support to constructing buildings, hospital and clinics in Africa and Latin America. Their assistance is often provided as part of a large package of trade and investment deal managed by the Ministry of Commerce. The Ministry of Health is also involved in providing medicine and medical equipment free of charge to African countries.  The Chinese have also been active in encouraging the development of joint programs with developing countries directed at addressing infectious diseases.¹⁸

Brazil, like China has focused on Africa and Latin America as well as Asia providing support to malaria, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, environmental surveillance of health, epidemiological surveillance, and hospital administration initiatives. Its assistance has taken the form of loans, grants, technical assistance and in-kind contributions.¹⁹ Russia has focused on Africa and on the Commonwealth of Independent States.  In addition to training doctors, most recently Russia has invested in malaria research, disease surveillance and control systems, HIV vaccines, and public health preparedness. India, like the other three contributes assistance to Africa in the form of staff training and infrastructure. It also targets its neighborhood: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

In delivering their assistance, all four countries are experimenting with modalities of transfer. Brazil and Russia are in the process of developing their aid architecture, while India and China rely on several ministries and institutions to manage their overseas assistance. All four countries are experimenting with new models of assistance provision, which rely on South-South partnerships as opposed to donor-recipient models. Both Russia and Brazil, are particularly interested in leveraging existing or potential partnerships with more traditional donors through triangular development cooperation.²⁰

China, India and Brazil are also increasingly involving their private sectors in health diplomacy. These countries have burgeoning biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors and some of their assistance takes the form of offering low cost drugs to populations who could not otherwise afford them.

China, India, Brazil and Russia have all supported the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. But it is here where the tension in their roles is evident as they are both recipients as well as donors to the fund. With the exception of Russia, the aid that they all have received from the fund far exceeds their contributions.²¹

In more general terms, while there are no reliable statistics on aggregate contributions provided by these states, the impression is that their overall aid assistance and role in the international arena has been to date relatively small given their economic capacity and growth rates. This may be on the verge of changing.  In July 2011, the BRICS issued the Beijing Declaration at the BRICS First Health Ministers’ Meeting in which they pledged to work with international health organizations to provide wider access to quality and affordable health care around the world.²²

PIVOTAL POWERS AS GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD PROVIDERS
This brief overview suggests that the BRICS countries are interested in increasing their role as providers of the global public good. At the same time, they seem reluctant to abandon their developing country status. With the exception of Russia, which has made a conscious policy decision to identify itself as a donor country. Nevertheless to date, particularly in the context of providing capacity building, these countries have tended to favor bilateral over multilateral forms of engagement.

Domestic realities and capacities, not surprisingly, have played a role in defining how eager they are to assume a leadership role in multilateral contexts and what form this role will take. Similarly, and not surprisingly, the nature of these countries’ engagement in global public goods provision is affected by the nature of the good in question.  Finally and perhaps most importantly, given these countries’ emerging preference for models of assistance that favor new types of partnerships, particularly South-South collaboration or triangular cooperation, their continued and increasing involvement in global public good provision is likely to transform the donor-client paradigm that dominates today.

Eva Busza is currently the Principal Officer in the Strategic Planning Unit of the Executive Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

 

1. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations. [↩]
2. BRIC is an acronym that refers to Brazil, Russia, India and China. It was coined by Jim O’Neill in  “Building Better Global Economic BRICs” (2001). Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper, No: 66 (November). South Africa was invited to join the group in 2010 as a full member changing the acronym to BRICS. [↩]
3. Wilson, Dominic and Alex Kelston and Swarnali Ahmed (2010). “Is this the ‘BRICs Decade’?” BRICs Monthly. Issue no:10/23. May 20. Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research, https://360.gs.com, accessed on 13 August 2011. [↩]
4. Orr, Robert C. (2011). “Innovation at the United Nations: Creating a new business model for solving global problems.”  Harvard International Review. Spring. [↩]
5. The behaviour of the five countries in these two arenas does not necessarily reflect their behaviour in more traditional security arenas like conflict resolution or arms control and non-proliferation or even peacekeeping. [↩]
6. For a discussion of global public goods see Kaul, Inge and Isabelle Grunberg and Marc Stern eds., (1999). Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21^st Century. New York: Oxford University Press. [↩]
7. Security Council resolution 1373 (2001): Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. [↩]
8. Security Council resolution 1540 (2004): Non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. [↩]
9. General Assembly Resolution 60/288(2006): The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. [↩]
10. Hutchful, Eboe (2007). “Economic Community of West African States Counterterrorism Efforts,” in African Counterterrorism Cooperation: Assessing Regional and Sub-regional Initiatives, ed. Andre Le Sage (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press and Potomac Books): 114. [↩]
11. The acronym SARS stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome and is caused by a virus first identified in 2003. [↩]
12. Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. (2004) A more secure world:Our shared responsibility. United Nations. [↩]
13. World Health Organization. (2005). International Health Regulations, Second Edition. http://www.who.int/ihr, accessed on 13 August 2011. [↩]
14. The right to health is guaranteed, under the terms of article 6 of the Brazilian Constitution, as a social right. Based on the constitutional act, prescribed in article 196, “health is the right of all and the duty of the State, granted by means of social and economic policies that aim at reducing the risk of disease and of other maladies, and at providing universal and equal access to the actions and services that promote health, protection and recovery”. Cited in de Oliveira, Aline Albuquerque S and Luana Palmieri França Pagani, Adriano Pereira Alves de Oliveira and Anamaria Cassemiro Mariano Gonzaga. (2009) ‘Right to health—a multi-country study’ project, Law School, University of Aberdeen, November, http://www.abdn.ac.uk/law/hhr.shtml, accessed on 13 August 2011. [↩]
15. Cooke, Jennifer (2010). “South Africa and Global Health: Minding the Home Front First.” In Bliss, Katherine, ed., Key Players in Global Health: How Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are Influencing the Game. CSIS: November: 41-50. [↩]
16. Oslo Ministerial Declaration—global health: a pressing foreign policy issue of our time. Published in The Lancet, Volume 369, Issue 9570, Pages 1373 – 1378, 21 April 2007. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60498-X/abstract, accessed on 13 August 2011. [↩]
17. For a good overview of BRIC health policies and initiatives see Bliss, Katherine, ed. (2010). Key Players in Global Health: How Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are Influencing the Game. CSIS: November and Ruger, Jennifer and Nora Y. NG ( 2010) .”Emerging and Transitioning Countries’ Role in Global Health.” Saint Louis University Journal of Health, Law and Policy, vol. 3: 253-290. [↩]
18. Youde, Jeremy (2010). “China’s Health Diplomacy in Africa.” China: An International Journal, Vol 8, March: 151-163. Lum Thomas and Hannah Fischer, Julissa Gomez-Granger, and Anne Leland (2009). China’s Foreign Aid Activities in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Congressional Research Service. February 25.  van Looy, Judith (2006).  Africa and China: A Strategic Partnerships. African Studies Center Working Paper 67. Netherlands: Leiden. “China’s Foreign Aid”.(Xinhua) Updated: 2011-04-21 17:52. China Daily. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-04/21/content_12372839_10.htm, accessed on 13 August 2011. [↩]
19. Lee, Kelly and Eduardo J. Gómez. (2011)  “Brazil’s Ascendance: The soft power role of global health diplomacy.” The European Business Review, January-February: 61-64. [↩]
20. Triangular models are based on cooperation between three parties: a traditional donor belonging to the OECD Development Assistance Committee, a Southern partner and a Southern beneficiary. [↩]
21. See pledges and contributions at http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/donors, accessed 15 August 2011. [↩]
22. BRICS Health Ministers’ Meeting-Beijing Declaration. http://keionline.org/node/1183, accessed on 15 August 2011. [↩]

Tags: Global Studies Review Vol. 7 No. 3 Fall 2011

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