In 2026, BRICS will celebrate two decades of cooperation. Initially a union comprising Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the alliance has transformed into a broader platform for political, economic, scientific, and international interaction, with South Africa joining in 2011, and the group subsequently expanding.
The evolution of this platform opens up growing opportunities for youth engagement. This is particularly relevant as the generation shaped by BRICS cooperation is now entering the labor market, starting businesses, conducting research, and participating more actively in public life both domestically and internationally.
For BRICS, youth policy extends beyond merely organizing conferences or exchanges. It is increasingly linked to the strategic question of how to equip young people with the necessary skills, networks, and economic opportunities to support the development of BRICS countries. This issue is especially acute in South Africa.
According to Statistics South Africa, in the second quarter of 2026, 5 million young people aged 15 to 34 were unemployed. Furthermore, 36.4% of those aged 15–24 lacked employment, education, or training. These figures indicate that the complexity lies not only in a lack of qualifications; South Africa requires additional pathways from education and training to employment, entrepreneurship, and productive economic activity. This is where BRICS cooperation can provide practical benefit.
The association's broader agenda is based on three interconnected areas: political and defense cooperation, economic and financial interaction, and people-to-people cooperation. Within this framework, youth policy is increasingly tied to education, skills development, entrepreneurship, science and technology, innovation, and employment.
At the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 2025, leaders directly called for the implementation of inclusive youth employment policies, ensuring a smoother transition from study to work, and expanding access to vocational training. They also emphasized the need for responsible technology use, developing digital competencies, and preparing youth for labor market changes driven by artificial intelligence. The institutional foundations for this work were laid in 2015 when the five BRICS countries signed a memorandum of cooperation on youth issues.
Since then, the BRICS Youth Summit, the BRICS Youth Council, and ministerial and high-level official meetings have provided a basis for coordinating joint initiatives. Moreover, youth cooperation has gradually moved beyond mere dialogue. For instance, the Russian International School of BRICS: New Generation, launched in 2017, gathered over 1000 participants from more than 60 countries, and the BRICS Youth Mentorship Program combines mentoring, internships, and business connections for young entrepreneurs.
South Africa has also contributed to this agenda: in April 2025, the BRICS Youth Innovation Summit was held in Cape Town, focusing on artificial intelligence, digital transformation, food security, circular economy, and green technologies. In 2026, this approach became more applied. Under India's chairmanship in BRICS, the youth agenda focuses on education and skills, entrepreneurship, science and innovation, inclusivity, sustainable development, and youth exchange.
The first BRICS Youth Coordination Meeting this year, held in March, launched a program that includes working groups, thematic consultations, volunteer activities, the Youth Development Forum, the Youth Council, the Youth Summit, and a meeting of youth ministers.
The framework conditions for BRICS youth cooperation in 2026 include youth exchanges, the BRICS Volunteer Week, leadership training, and entrepreneurship internships in India, while placing greater emphasis on the participation and mentorship of adolescents.
Entrepreneurship has become one of the most direct ways to link youth cooperation with employment. In May 2026, a meeting of the BRICS Youth Council Entrepreneurship Working Group took place in India, which combined practical workshops, visits to enterprises and innovation ecosystems, as well as mentoring and networking among young entrepreneurs from BRICS countries.
At the BRICS Summit in New Delhi in September 2026, India also proposed a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund and an incubator network to strengthen support for young entrepreneurs and startups. A similar trend is visible in science and technology. The New Delhi Declaration 2026 encouraged the more active participation of young researchers and startups through existing BRICS mechanisms, including the Young Scientists Forum and the Young Innovators Award. It also welcomed the proposal to create a virtual platform for BRICS youth startups, designed to connect young innovators and facilitate networking across the association.
The potential benefits for South Africa are particularly significant. BRICS can help address youth unemployment not by replacing national policy decisions, but by creating additional international opportunities: joint educational programs, internships, research projects, entrepreneurial support, access to business networks, and partnerships between universities and companies.
Cooperation in high-growth potential areas—including digital technologies, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, green economy, manufacturing, agriculture, and creative industries—can help young South Africans acquire skills aligned with emerging demand in BRICS and beyond. The key challenge is connecting these tools. The Youth Summit is useful if it leads to partnerships; a training program is valuable if it enhances employability; an internship is worthwhile when it provides access to a professional network; and startup support has a greater impact when it opens access to investors and markets in other BRICS countries.
After two decades of cooperation, the BRICS youth agenda is shifting from participation to opportunity. The goal should be to build a continuous pathway from education and skills development to mentorship, internships, entrepreneurship, research, and employment. For South Africa, where the issue of youth employment growth is so vital, transforming this pathway into real economic opportunities is not just an added benefit of BRICS cooperation, but one of the areas where its practical value is most clearly translated into improving the quality of life for South Africans.
