South Africa — Marginal Thinking

Global System & PowerSeptember 23, 2026

BRICS Global South New Development Bank international institutions local currencies

BRICS in 2026: from an investment acronym to a heterogeneous institution of Global South coordination

An institutional and economic reconstruction of how BRICS evolved from a four-country analytical category into an 11-member coordination system with a development bank, wider diplomatic reach and rising internal heterogeneity.

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Global System & PowerSeptember 23, 2026

South Africa apartheid mining inequality unemployment

South Africa: mineral wealth, apartheid's spatial legacy and the productivity cost of exclusion

South Africa built Africa's deepest mining-financial-industrial system through gold, diamonds and state-supported infrastructure, but apartheid locked labour and urban space into extreme inequality; three decades after democratization, weak investment, unemployment, electricity and logistics remain the central constraints on inclusive growth.

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