Association For Strategic Culture and Research Foundation

The selection of the UAE, Uruguay and Bangladesh as the first three non-founding partners of the NDB indicates the intentions of BRICS – regional expansion with a focus on economic and transportation cooperation. This cooperation, as well as integration, is especially crucial as the world struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout.

The world’s most unstable regions are undoubtedly knitted in the Middle-East and the Sub-Saharan Africa. On one end a handful of the middle eastern countries account to the most chaotic warfare since World War II.

Egyptian foreign ministry officials interviewed for this paper describe the last decade of Egypt’s regional positioning as “defensive” in nature as the country contended with domestic issues.