Introduction: emerging powers and the UN – what kind of development partnership?

Since the outset, in the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations development system (UNDS) has constituted an essential pillar of the world organisation’s activities, along with those devoted to peacekeeping, humanitarianism, human rights and justice. Adaptations notwithstanding, serious questions remain about its effectiveness and capacity to represent adequately the aspirations of ‘we, the peoples’ – the opening words of the UN Charter – particularly in the global South. Although developing countries have joined forces at different stages in the international arena – including through the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 (G77) – to increase their voices within the system, over the past decade a new twist has been added, the visibility of emerging powers. This reality not only reflects the latter’s growing role as providers of development cooperation but also their criticism of the existing architecture for global economic governance. Both individually and through new alignments such as that of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), emerging powers are engaging more directly not only in the practices of development cooperation but also in key normative debates about how accelerated development and poverty alleviation could and should be carried out, and how major institutions could and should contribute. Recent research shows the extent to which Southern agency has been a source of global norms. Whether or not the phenomenon of emerging powers reinforces the North–South divide or increases the diversity of positions and alignments within the international system, however, remains very much open to debate. The essays in this volume address that debate and are the product of a fruitful collaboration between the Institute of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro (and its affiliated BRICS Policy Center) and the Future UN Development System Project (FUNDS) of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at The City University of New York’s (CUNY) Graduate Center. In particular, this joint research effort sought to analyse the changing role of emerging powers in light of ongoing intergovernmental discussions about the UN’s capacity to foster sustainable development. By bringing