Modi Tells BRICS Outreach Summit Global South Trust in Bloc Has Grown
PM Modi said Global South nations trust BRICS more because their voices are heard, as he unveiled a raft of initiatives at the leaders' outreach summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering of BRICS leaders and invited guests on Sunday that the confidence of Global South countries in the grouping has strengthened, attributing it to those nations being heard and their experiences respected within it.
Addressing the BRICS leaders' outreach summit with partner countries and guest leaders on the closing day of the summit, Modi said he could speak from personal experience that trust in the bloc had grown because "within BRICS, their voices are heard. Their experiences are respected. And solutions are created with them, not merely for them."
He described the assembled hall as a meeting point of diverse continents, cultures and developmental paths, calling it evidence of the grouping's expanding strength, appeal and trust, and said its power rests on diversity and cooperation.
Initiatives unveiled
Modi announced a series of measures, including a BRICS Integrated Early Warning System for preventing and responding to infectious diseases, a Logistics Supply Chain Cooperation Framework, an Incubator Network, a Startup Innovation Fund, an MSME Cooperation Portal, a Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage, an Urban Mobility Hub, and Centres of Excellence for Agro-Ecology and Regenerative Agriculture.
He said the incubator network would link start-ups with incubators, while the proposed innovation fund would back scalable solutions. The urban mobility hub, he added, would help cities share best practices, and the energy centre would make clean power systems more reliable, efficient and accessible.
Resilience and sustainability
Modi said global tensions are rising steadily and carrying a heavy, far-reaching toll on ordinary people. Pandemics, climate disasters and supply-chain shocks, he noted, have shown that no crisis stays confined to one region in an interconnected world, which is why India has stressed building resilience within BRICS — spotting challenges early, preparing for them and acting without delay.
He said India's chairmanship had concentrated on four pillars: resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability, and that these had been turned into mutually beneficial collaboration. The prime minister added that India wants cooperation to extend beyond governments to entrepreneurs, farmers, researchers, women, youth and ordinary citizens.
On the environment, he said Indian civilisation has long revered nature and holds that development and ecology are complementary rather than competing goals, a balance that forms the basis of sustainability and an obligation to future generations.
Other leaders speak
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the world is undergoing profound changes and that the Global South is rising collectively to become a key driver of multipolarity. He said the international situation is complex and volatile, with risks and challenges emerging in succession, and urged BRICS countries to seize the initiative of history, unite with the broader Global South, play a stabilising and constructive role in world affairs and advance humanity's common well-being.
The summit also heard from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, along with foreign ministers from Brazil and Saudi Arabia, representatives of partner and guest countries, and heads of international organisations including UN Secretary-General António Guterres.