The Department of Political Sciences and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) invite you to a conference on "Alliances beyond BRICS: South Africa's role in global economic governance."

South Africa’s role in global economic governance has recently become more identifiable by its membership of the G20 and BRICS and also by its participation in other Global South associations, such as FOCAC. BRICS, FOCAC and similar groupings, though, are too small to represent the emerging world, yet too big to ignore. Within the G20 and these other, smaller groupings, South Africa and other emerging powers such as Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia, together with middle powers such as Canada and Australia, need to define and pursue their own strategic interests and seek out appropriate allies and/or join corresponding coalitions which might, in the case of South Africa, transcend BRICS and FOCAC and may involve a number of developed countries. This conference is aimed at exploring the various issues and interests of South Africa and other emerging and middle powers with a view to identify alternative coalitional possibilities for South Africa in mapping its strategy for global economic governance engagement. Speakers from Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa will present and discuss the issues, interests and strategies of individual countries, as well as of informal groupings.

Date: 4-5 December 2014
Venue: SRC Chambers (please see building 50 on the campus map, below)
Programme: Please see the attachment below
RSVP: Ms Kirsty Agnew ([email protected]) on or before 25 November