Leveraging BRICS partnerships for structural transformation: African agency in shaping equitable multilateral trade systems in a multipolar era

This study investigates how African states leverage BRICS partnerships to advance structural transformation and shape equitable multilateral trade governance in a multipolar era. Employing a constructivist theoretical framework and a qualitative, multi-method research design—including process-tracing, it moves beyond materialist analyses to uncover the ideational and procedural mechanics of African agency. The research yields original scientific findings by identifying and analyzing the specific, strategic mechanisms through which African actors convert normative solidarity into institutional outcomes. It demonstrates how African agency, operationalized through the African Union and the AfCFTA, strategically exploits BRICS’s internal diversities to forge issue-based coalitions, thereby reframing trade rules around norms of industrial justice and sovereign development. Crucially, the study provides empirical evidence of how this agency has materialized in binding contractual innovations, such as the New Development Bank’s mandate for 30% local procurement and skills-transfer benchmarks, and in the formulation of the proposed “Nairobi Principles” featuring sunset clauses for technology transfer. These findings constitute a distinct contribution to the specialized literature by delineating the precise conditions under which identity-driven coalitions within asymmetrical partnerships can generate enforceable, rather than merely declaratory, reforms. The study concludes that the translation of African strategic influence into lasting structural change remains contingent on the institutionalization of these hard-won procedural gains within the evolving BRICS architecture.