	BRICS Information Centre

2012 BRICS Delhi Summit Compliance Report

March 22, 2013

This compliance report assesses the compliance of the BRICS members over the period of 29 March 2012 to 8 March 2013. It assesses five priority commitments of the 32 made at the Delhi Summit hosted by India in March 2012.

Download the full report here.

Introduction and Summary

The 2012 BRICS New Delhi Summit Compliance Report, prepared by the BRICS Research Group (the University of Toronto and the International Organizations Research Institute of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (IORI HSE), is the second report on the BRICS compliance performance since its inception at the leaders level in 2008.

The report analyzes compliance performance by BRICS countries with a selection of five priority commitments out of a total of 32 commitments made by the leaders at the New Delhi Summit on 29 March 2011. The report covers the compliance-relevant actions taken by the BRICS countries during the period from 29 March 2012 to 8 March 2013. This timeframe allows for an assessment of compliance for the period between the 2012 New Delhi Summit and the 2013 Durban Summit, hosted by South Africa on 26-27 March 2013.

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Methodology and Scoring System

This report draws on the methodology developed by the G8 Research Group, which has been monitoring G8 compliance annually since 1996 and semi-annually since 2002. The same methodology has been adopted for monitoring G20 performance since 2008. The use of this time tested methodology builds cross-institutional, cross-member and cross-issue consistency and thus allows compatibility and comparability of the compliance performance by the G8, G20 and BRICS, providing foundation for evidence-based assessment of these institutions effectiveness.

The methodology uses a scale from -1 to +1, where +1 indicates full compliance with the stated commitment, -1 indicates a failure to comply or action taken that is directly opposite to the stated goal of the commitment, and 0 indicates partial compliance or work in progress, such as initiatives that have been launched but are not yet near completion and whose final results can therefore not be assessed. Each member assessed receives a score of -1, 0 or +1 for each commitment. For convenience, the scientific scores reported in the tables in this summary have been converted to percentages, where -1 equals 0%, 0 equals 50% and +1 equals 100%. [The formula to convert a score into a percentage is P=50×(S+1), where P is the percentage and S is the score.]

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Commitment Breakdown

The BRICS made a total of 32 commitments at the New Delhi Summit (the full list is available at http://www.hse.ru/en/org/hse/iori/bric). These commitments, as identified by the BRICS Research Group, are drawn from the official BRICS Delhi Declaration. They cover issue areas ranging from climate change to terrorism.

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Selection of Commitments

Although BRICS countries made a total of 32 commitments at the Delhi Summit, the BRICS Research Group has undertaken to assess compliance of all members for 5 priority commitments (see Table 1). For each compliance cycle (that is, the period between summits), the research team selects commitments that reflect the breadth of the BRICS agenda and also reflect the priority of the summit's host, while balancing the selection to allow for comparison with past and future summits. The selection also replicates the breakdown of issue areas and the proportion of commitments in each issue area. Primary criteria for selecting a priority commitment for assessment are the comprehensiveness and relevance to the summit, the BRICS and the world, as well as individual and collective pledges. Selected commitments must also meet secondary criteria of performance such as measurability and ability to commit within a year. Tertiary criteria include significance as identified by scientific teams and relevant stakeholders in the host country.

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The Final Compliance Scores

The assessment is based on publicly available information relating to compliance-relevant action taken from 29 March 2012 to 8 March 2013. The final compliance scores by commitment are contained in Table 2.

For the period from 29 March 2012 to 8 March 2013, BRICS countries achieved an average final compliance score of +0.28, which translates to 64% on the percentage scale.

This is the second BRICS compliance report produced. The compliance score decreased from last year. The overall compliance score based on five 2011 Sanya Summit commitments was +0.48 or 74% compliance. This is a short amount of time to make any inferences. However, analysis reveals that the number of concrete commitments made by the BRICS leaders at the summits has been growing. 15 commitments were registered in 2009 Joint Statement of BRIC Leaders with 5 of them in the area of energy, and 3 commitments on overcoming the food crisis and establishing medium and long-term conditions for agriculture development were formulated in the Joint Statement on Global Food Security. At the summit in Brasilia BRICS leaders made 31 commitments in multiple issue areas: 9 commitments were made in the area of energy, 6 related to finance, 4 fell under development assistance, 2 focused on trade and the same amount — on macroeconomic cooperation. In 2011 the number of commitments agreed by the BRICS leaders amounted to 38. The balance of commitments by priorities changed. Most of them (6) addressed the issues of environmental protection and economic adaptation to climate change. Coordination has strengthened on sustainable and balanced growth (5 commitments), trade expansion (5 commitments), development assistance (4 commitments), interaction in social and economic spheres (4 commitments), including social protection, decent jobs, addressing the problems of youth and public health. In 2012 at the New Delhi Summit, 32 commitments were made in the areas of: 9 commitments on trade, 3 each on international cooperation, development, political issues, and climate change, 2 each on socioeconomic issues, and IFI reform and 1 each on macroeconomics, crime, terrorism, food and agriculture, and health.

The average number of commitments during this period totaled 29, which is significantly lower than the G20 average for almost the same period between 2008 and 2011 (124). Commitment "density," i.e., the ratio of the number of commitments to the number of characters in the summit documents is also lower for BRICS (17) than for the G20 (22). However, there is a tendency towards its increase, which can be considered as an evidence of BRICS gradual institutionalization, improvement in the quality of dialogue and the ability to coordinate decisions on the expanding number of issues.

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Compliance by Member

For country-specific compliance with the New Delhi Summit's priority commitments, South Africa, which is chairing BRICS this year, India which chaired the BRICS last year and China, each have the highest compliance score of +0.40 (70%). These countries are followed by Russia with an overall compliance score of +0.20 (60%) and then by Brazil with an overall average of 0.00 (50%). This trend confirms the tendency characteristic of the summitry and is observed in the G8 and G20. The top compliance performers are usually the country chairing the summit and the forthcoming chair in the group.

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Compliance by Commitment

Overall compliance by commitment has been high, with all scores distributed from 0 to +1.

The highest scoring commitment is that on Energy +0.60 (80%). The lowest score was on the commitment on UNCTAD at 0.00 (50%). For more information on scoring by commitment, see Table 2.

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Future Research and Reports

The information contained in this report provides BRICS countries and other stakeholders with an indication of their compliance in the period between the Sanya and New Delhi summits. This report has been produced as an invitation for others to provide additional or more complete information on compliance. Feedback should be sent to brics@utoronto.ca and iori@hse.ru.

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Table 1: 2012 BRICS Delhi Summit Selected Priority Commitments for Compliance Assessment

Priority Area	Commitments Selected and Assessed for Compliance (n = 5)
International Financial System Reform	[3] We will work with the international community to ensure that sufficient resources can be mobilized to the IMF in a timely manner as the Fund continues its transition to improve governance and legitimacy
Trade: UNCTAD	[9] Considering UNCTAD to be the focal point in the UN system for the treatment of trade and development issues, we intend to invest in improving its traditional activities of consensus-building, technical cooperation and research on issues of economic development and trade.
Climate Change: Convention on Biological Diversity	[23] We will continue our efforts for the implementation of the Convention [on Biological Diversity] and its Protocols, with special attention to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, Biodiversity Strategic Plan 2011-2020 and the Resource Mobilization Strategy.
Development: NEPAD	[25] [We attach the highest importance to economic growth that supports development and stability in Africa, as many of these countries have not yet realised their full economic potential.] We will take our cooperation forward to support their efforts to accelerate the diversification and modernization of their economies. This will be through infrastructure development, knowledge exchange and support for increased access to technology, enhanced capacity building, and investment in human capital, including within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
Energy: Clean and Renewable Energy	[27] We will expand sourcing of clean and renewable energy, and use of energy efficient and alternative technologies, to meet the increasing demand of our economies and our people, and respond to climate concerns as well.

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Table 2: 2012 BRICS Delhi Summit Compliance Scores

	Commitment	Brazil	China	India	Russia	South Africa	Average Score	Average Percentage
1	International Financial System Reform [13]	0	+1	0	0	0	+0.20	60%
2	Trade: UNCTAD [9]	0	0	+1	-1	0	0	50%
3	Climate Change: Convention on Biological Diversity [23]	0	-1	+1	+1	0	+0.20	60%
4	Development: NEPAD [28]	0	+1	0	0	+1	+0.40	70%
5	Energy: Clean and Renewable Energy [27]	0	+1	0	+1	+1	+0.60	80%
	Average score	0	+0.40	+0.40	+0.20	+0.40	+0.28
		50%	70%	70%	60%	70%		64%

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Research Team

Professor John Kirton, Co-director, BRICS Research Group; Co-director, G20 Research Group

Professor Marina Larionova, Co-director, BRICS Research Group; Head, HSE International Organizations Research Institute

Caroline Bracht
Benjamin Cormier
Nicolas Erwes
Arman Hamidian
Tshweu Moleme
Nina da Nobrega Garcia
Elvira Omarbagaeva
Mark Rakhmangulov
Aditi Ratho
Andrei Sakharov
Vitali Selivanov
Andrey Shelepov

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