Ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in India the CGTN news agency unveiled its poll regarding the perception of BRICS across developed and developing countries. The survey was conducted by CGTN among 12,250 respondents across 41 countries and covered major developed economies and Global South countries [1]. The methodology of the survey envisaged that “all respondents were members of the general public aged 18 and above, and the sample matches each country’s census distribution by age and gender”. While the results do not show how attitudes changed across time periods, the overall pattern of responses suggests a notable level of awareness across the global community of the role of BRICS as a bloc in the world economy.
Reflecting the rise of the BRICS bloc on the international stage the key result of the CGTN poll suggests that “more than six in 10 respondents believe BRICS has grown more influential in international affairs in recent years”. Another conclusion of the poll is that 63% of respondents provided a positive assessment of BRICS’ contribution to improving the global governance system, with respondents in 25 of the 41 countries surveyed providing approval rates of more than 60%.
Importantly, positive assessments of BRICS international role were particularly strong among the younger generation of respondents. On the question whether cooperation within the expanded BRICS helps steer the international order toward greater fairness and justice, the share of positive responses reached 61.6%, with approval exceeding 60% across all age groups under 44, and peaking at 66.6% among respondents aged 25 to 34. Reflecting the notable differences in the responses across the advanced and developing economies, approval in Global South countries exceeded the corresponding level in developed countries by 26.4 percentage points.
On the crucial issue of BRICS cooperation in the financial sphere, 65.6% of respondents positively viewed BRICS’ drive for local-currency settlement and a more diversified international monetary system, “believing it has effectively amplified the voice of Global South countries in global financial governance”. Importantly, this view was shared by more than 50% of the respondents in developed countries, which suggests that a more diversified international monetary system that provides greater optionality in terms of savings and investment may be one of the most important contributions by BRICS to global economic development from the point of view of households and individual entrepreneurs. This is partly also reflected in the fact that the issue of BRICS currency is among the most popular (if not the single most popular) BRICS-related theme across the wide strata of the global population. The recent CGTN poll is also suggestive of the centrality of the reform of the international monetary system, with this theme exhibiting one of the highest support levels from the poll’s respondents.
Other key areas of importance for BRICS from the point of view of those polled included the theme of international trade in view of the current protectionist pressures facing the bloc. Indeed, the three areas where the BRICS recognition scores were the highest included:
- helping emerging markets and developing countries support global economic recovery and trade growth;
- advancing global governance reform and strengthening the voice of emerging markets and developing countries;
- supporting international trade cooperation while opposing protectionism and unilateral sanctions.
The CGTN article that presents the results of the poll does not contain the entire list of countries that participated in the poll and accordingly the distribution between developed and developing economies. Certainly, we have witnessed in earlier international polls[2] the differences in perception across the developed and the developing world that seem to point to the lack of information about BRICS and the notable information asymmetries across countries concerning the bloc’s goals and achievements. This in turn needs to attract greater efforts from BRICS members, including within the context of the BRICS+/BRICS++ outreach exercises, in conveying the key messages regarding the bloc’s development to the international community, particularly the younger generation. With respect to the latter, a more diverse and extensive network of BRICS Universities and schools, would also go a long way towards addressing the lingering “information gaps”.
Overall, while the results of the poll may be taken with cautious optimism on how the BRICS is perceived on the international arena, there is clearly a lack of such polls in the global information space. In recent years CGTN was one of the leaders in conducting BRICS-related polls and there may be scope for a wider BRICS+ effort in this domain. Perhaps there could be a way for an alliance between the main news agencies of BRICS+ economies to provide regular “barometer polls/publications” on the attitudes concerning BRICS and its priorities across member and partner economies. Similar “barometer publication” have been launched in Africa[3] and other regional blocs. It could also be a potential path to evaluating public attitudes to some of the initiatives being explored by BRICS members in the run-up to the annual BRICS summits.
[1] https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-09-11/Poll-Six-in-10-respondents-see-a-growing-BRICS-role-in-global-affairs-1QlyVfTowjm/index.html
[2] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-look-into-a-new-brics-poll/
[3] https://www.afrobarometer.org/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
