BRICS+ and Africa: Middle East powers in a multipolar game
BRICS is more than a symbolic shift in evolving global governance-it’s recalibrating power. When BRICS welcomed six new members in 2023 (Egypt, Ethiopian and Iran), it accentuated a decisive move toward multipolarity. But beneath this is a deeper geopolitical current: the growing complex interplay between the Middle East and Africa in the context of a post-Western world order.
African states are recalibrating their external partnerships, and Middle Eastern powers are positioning themselves as mediators, financiers, and strategic allies. A new diplomatic scene is being set by geoeconomics, ideological pluralism and a quiet competition for long-term influence.
Significance of BRICS expansion
Expanding BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE (with the latter two delaying formal accession) signals more than a regional outreach. It marks Africa and the Middle East as essential players in an emerging order that’s challenging the hegemony of Bretton Woods institutions.
For Africa, including Egypt and Ethiopia is geopolitically significant. Egypt being the control point of the Suez Canal and a diplomatic heavyweight in the Arab League and African Union, is anchoring North Africa in global trade and diplomacy. Ethiopia is a host to the AU headquarters and one of Africa’s most populous and fastest growing economies, representing the continents institutional and demographic future.
Including Iran on the other hand is reflecting BRICS willingness to engage powers that have been historically marginalized by the West, suggesting an alternative bloc offering political legitimacy and economic opportunity to sanctioned or constrained states. Collectively, these accessions are embedding Africa and the Middle East more deeply in the discourse of multipolarity.
Expanding BRICS+ is hinting at an early framework of an alternative global order. Its inclusivity towards sanctioned or marginalized states could be setting the stage for a parallel diplomatic ecosystem that is legitimizing resistance to Western pressure. Its not just economic space but narrative power. BRICS+ could gradually become an ideological axis where sovereignty, non-interference and South-South solidarity will be elevated as global norms.
The Middle East’s recalibrated Africa policy
Including Iran and Egypt in BRICS reinforces pre-existing shifts in how Middle Eastern powers are engaging the African continent. While much analysis is focusing on China’s footprint in Africa, the strategic penetration by the Gulf countries, Iran and Egypt is just as consequential.
Iran is reactivating its Africa strategy quietly after years of limited presence. Tehran is pursuing new diplomatic missions, expanding religious and ideological outreach, and expressing interest in the BRICS-led trade initiatives.
Egypt is continuing to play a dual role-as an African and Arab state. Cairo’s participation in BRICS+ is offering an alternative platform for trade financing and debt diplomacy outside western institutions.
The Gulf states are investing heavily in African infrastructure, agriculture, and fintech. These investments shape long-term dependencies and policy alignment.
This growing engagement from the Middle East is building a subtle web of influence that may not always align with African priorities. Diversifying partnerships can seem empowering, but overlapping interests from Iran, Turkey and the Gulf can be creating ideological nuances or competing strategic logics across Africa. In effect, African states become laboratories for external power projection in which economic outreach cloaks long term strategic tethering.
Currency, trade and BRICS economic vision
One of BRICS+ ambition is to challenge the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade. For African and Middle Eastern countries, many burdened by debt and dollar volatility, this is a potentially stabilizing alternative.
Several members of the BRICS+ are beginning to experiment with bilateral trade in local currencies, though a unified currency remains aspirational. This is a relevant shift for African countries facing external debt stress. Dollar-based debt service, along with currency depreciation is weakening fiscal sovereignty. Rising BRICS-aligned financial mechanisms offer limited but politically meaningful alternatives.
Middle Eastern financial power is integral to this process. Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are flowing into African banks and infrastructure, already setting the motions for alternative trade and finance channels.
This local currency trade shift is also a geopolitical code for alignment. Even without sharing a currency, the infrastructure being built is about future-proofing influence. However, it may also be ushering into a new form of economic stratification withing BRICS+, where countries with weak currencies will structurally be subordinated to stronger financial centers like China or the UAE. Autonomy may prove to be more symbolic than substantive.
The West?
The G7, IMF, and European partners are increasing their diplomatic and financial engagements with African states, framing BRICS+ as economically untested and politically opaque.
Countries like Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal are navigating a much more complex external environment. Instead of choosing between the East and West, many are adopting strategic hedging: simultaneously engaging the U.S., EU, China, BRICS and the Gulf. Kenya is deepening ties with multiple partners, enforcing this trend. For these countries multipolarity is simply pragmatic.
The hedging among African states is illustrating tactical sophistication but further revealing the fragility of autonomy in an era of intense global competition. Multipolarity can only be empowering if leveraged with clear, long-term statecraft. Without that, its risking transactionalism in which African agency becomes short-term balancing rather than long-term shaping. As pressure is intensifying, so will the burden of choice.
The intelligence and security dimension
BRICS+ is not a formal security bloc, but its members are showing growing interest in shared cybersecurity norms, counterterrorism intelligence, and strategic surveillance. Iran’s renewed engagement in Africa is monitored with concern by Israel and Western intelligence services. Gulf powers are maintaining forward-operating bases and naval logistics hubs in Djibouti, Eritrea and Somaliland. Russia and China are building cyber cooperation frameworks within African and Middle Eastern partners. This is emerging shadow diplomacy redefining influence in Africa.
These intelligence ties are more about silent ecosystem capture and less about overt military posturing. With surveillance, cyber doctrines, and counterterrorism partnerships deepening beyond the West, Africa is risking being sidelined in rival security architectures. This kind of structural alignment is hard to reverse. This then becomes a tipping point, not just in who is gathering data but who is controlling the narratives, perceptions and domestic power dynamics across the continent.
Africa’s strategic leverage?
Africa and the Middle East are not peripheral to global transformation, they are at the center. The expansion of BRICS+ and the Middle East’s parallel deepening of ties with Africa is a new geopolitical terrain-one where alliances are transactional, not permanent, and where agency is being defined by a state’s effectiveness in navigating overlapping spheres of influence.
This is an opportunity and risk moment for Africa. The opportunity is in diversifying partnerships and asserting greater autonomy in international finance, trade and governance. The risk is in overexposing to competing agendas and the challenge to maintain strategic coherence amid this complexity.
Africa’s centrality in this shifting order is undeniable, but its strategic depth is underdeveloped. The current moment is about building institutional memory, sovereign technology ecosystems and narrative ownership, not just agency. Without this, Africa’s multipolar advantage is short-lived, trading away in exchange for infrastructure, rhetoric, or temporary debt relief. Africa has to deliberately invest in shaping, not surviving this transition.
About the Author: Jasleen Gill is an International Relations graduate with a minor in Criminal Justice and concentration in Peace and Conflict studies, with a strong focus on security, diplomacy, and conflict resolution. Passionate about global governance, humanitarian action, geopolitics and intelligence analysis, she explores the dynamics of war, peacebuilding, and international security, with a particular interest in Africa’s evolving role in global affairs.