BRICS countries share a commitment to social protection and their recent initiatives to extend and strengthen social security coverage have significantly contributed to global progress towards universal social protection. The BRICS cooperation as regards social security is supported by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Social Security Association (ISSA), including through the joint hosting of a Virtual Liaison Office as part of the BRICS Social Security Cooperation Framework. Since 2015, the ILO and ISSA have provided knowledge input to the annual BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ and Working Group meetings.
The term BRICS refers to the countries of Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa, which together count for about 42 per cent of the world's population and 32 per cent of global GDP. On 1 January 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also became members of the BRICS cooperation.
The BRICS countries attach great importance to social protection and discussed progress in moving forward towards sustainable and universal social security systems. Cooperation between governments, social partners and civil society organizations from the BRICS countries and various international organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been increasingly active, demonstrating a great potential for the BRICS countries to contribute positively to global efforts of social security coverage extension.
As early as in 2011, the ISSA launched its BRICS project to monitor social security developments in the BRICS countries, with special emphasis on the extension of social security coverage. In 2013, the ISSA published the report Social security coverage extension in the BRICS: A comparative study on the extension of coverage in Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa.
Since 2015, the ISSA, in collaboration with the ILO, has actively contributed to the annual BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meetings as well as the BRICS Employment Working Group meetings. The BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Declaration in 2017 (Chongqing, China) established the BRICS Social Security Cooperation Framework, including the Virtual Liaison Office, to deepen collaboration among BRICS countries and with other countries, supported by the ILO and the ISSA. Following this development, the BRICS Commitment towards Sustainable and Universal Social Protection was adopted at the ILO Global Social Security Protection Week in November 2019, and the first BRICS Executive Interactive Webinar: “Conducting Negotiations on Social Security Agreements between Nations: Initiation Approaches and Procedures” was organized by the Virtual Liaison Office in April 2021 in close cooperation with the Ministry of Labour and Employment of India.