Pragmatic leadership based on sustainable use of resources for global prosperity can overcome trust deficit within BRICS

The BRICS group is five years old, and the modest agreement among the five member states to establish a development bank and pool of currency reserves moves it beyond a dialogue forum for cooperative mechanisms and challenges the 60-year hegemony of the undemocratic Bretton Woods. BRICS' next step should be a transition in ideas and principles to share global governance and prosperity in an interdependent world.

BRICS member states account for 20 percent of the world GDP, 42 percent of the global population, 40 percent of foreign reserves, but only 15 percent voting rights in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Much of BRICS' collective clout derives from the economic miracle of China, whose economy is a quarter larger than the other four combined. China, however, does not have the monopoly of power enjoyed by the United States at the end of World War II when the latter established the old international order.