BRICS is a multilateral intergovernmental organisation created to reflect the shared power status of emerging economies, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Since its first summit in the year 2009 at Yekaterinburg, Russia, the organisation, among several other aspects, has pledged to strive towards creating a greater level of coordination among the member states in ‘socially vital areas’, aiming to deliver timely and effective international humanitarian assistance and also to take steps towards risk reduction in dealing with natural disasters. The foundations for cooperation among BRICS members in the prevention and response to emergency situations have been laid out in Article 35 of the Ufa Declaration 2015. This study traces and analyses the evolution of cooperation mechanisms within the BRICS in the field of disaster risk reduction.

The organisation of BRICS is often associated with grand and idealistic schemes of de-dollarisation and challenging the existing Western-oriented world order in several major public discourses. This has led several scholars to point out that BRICS lacks internal ideological unity, that the existing geopolitical turmoil will render the organisation ineffective, and that it has achieved little of practical significance at the international level. However, on closer inspection, the member states have found mutually beneficial areas of cooperation and are working to strengthen ties in these areas, including disaster management and risk reduction.

It is interesting to note that the year 2026 marks exactly a decade of cooperation among the BRICS members in disaster risk reduction and management. The first ministerial-level meeting for discussing disaster management practices took place in St Petersburg on 1^st of April 2016, wherein a preliminary joint action plan was formulated, while the road map for the implementation was adopted in the Udaipur declaration, along with setting up a joint task force for ‘regular dialogue, exchange, mutual support, and collaboration in disaster risk management’.

In the Udaipur declaration it is observed that the BRICS members have agreed to the fact that there is a rise in the exposure to natural disasters due to human-induced climate change and in the light of growing intensity in the loss of human life, destruction of property, economic and other social and cultural assets. This has paved the way for establishing mechanisms for exchanging information regarding best practices in disaster management. In this declaration, a call has been made to strengthen the national, regional and local capacities for monitoring and response towards natural disasters. In the case of extreme weather events, cooperation has been sought for forecasting and early warning to better manage the adverse effects. (Udaipur Declaration)

The subsequent meeting for disaster risk reduction took place in Buffalo city in South Africa in the year 2018, only reiterated the previous commitments made by the members of the BRICS towards disaster management. This, however, is the first official acknowledgement of the Sendai Framework, established by the BRICS at the UN, which has called for a mutually reinforcing approach to this international agreement. (Buffalo Declaration)

The next major ministerial-level meeting on disaster management took place in 2024 in Kazan, Russia. This meeting witnessed the five newly inducted members of BRICS, namely Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia. This meeting, while reiterating the commitments from previous engagements, has called for the development of standard operating procedures for information exchange and crisis management centres among member nations. Emphasis has also been placed on training search-and-rescue personnel in compliance with international standards, including experience responding to international disasters. (Kazan Declaration)

In 2025, during Brazil’s presidency, a Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group is created with the vision of addressing the disproportionate challenges faced by the nations of the Global South due to disasters exacerbated by climate change. This working group operates on the principle of integrating developmental and social justice dimensions in disaster risk reduction. The working group has also proposed a biannual progress report to track progress and included a provision for funding by the NDB (New Development Bank). A work plan has been created through 2028, with specified objectives and a proposed timeline for achieving them. The scope of disaster response has been expanded by the working group to include local community participation in early warning design and dissemination, integrating traditional knowledge systems. (Work Plan 2025-2028 BRICS Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group)

The latest ministerial meeting on disaster management took place in India 2026. This meeting, while acknowledging the commitments of previous meetings, stressed a people-centred approach to crisis management, nature-based solutions, and the provision of last-mile connectivity to disseminate information. The members are also encouraged to ensure interoperability of data and information exchange for effective cooperation. The principle of Build Back Better has also been emphasised to insulate against future disasters in the post-disaster recovery phase. (BRICS disaster risk reduction group ministerial meeting)

The disaster management architecture of BRICS initially provided only basic cooperation and has gradually evolved towards recognition of social justice aspects, ensuring intra-BRICS cooperation and securing financing from the NDB to develop best practices in prevention, early warning systems, and monitoring of hazardous natural disasters.

It is often widely cited that BRICS is an alternative to the Western-led world order and that this ushers in a new era of global politics through a complete overhaul of the existing power structures. However, BRICS intends only to revise the international system to better reflect the current ground realities of the elevated influence of emerging economies, for a just and fair global order. The evidence can be found in the fact that the BRICS has acknowledged the importance of the ‘Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction’, adopted in the UN, and has expressed its intent to adhere to the framework and to supplement it with the mechanism created for intra-BRICS cooperation.

In order to mitigate the effects of natural disasters, it becomes imperative for the member countries to invest time and effort to build disaster-resilient infrastructure, stimulate innovation towards risk reduction practices, formulate policies promoting coordination and cooperation during the post-disaster operations and also to focus on environmental sustainability of human activities so as to prevent large-scale destruction of human life and property. The member states ‘posturing towards disaster management is best reflected in the theme that India, in the 18th BRICS summit, has adopted: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.