In this analysis, Kwabena Nyantakyi argues that Ghana should engage BRICS, Western institutions, African platforms and Gulf investors, but judge every partnership by the jobs, production, technology and resilience it delivers.

The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September 2026 offers a starting point for Ghana's debate about the multipolar world. Ghana is not a BRICS member or partner country and had no formal seat at the table. Yet the summit matters because changes in global trade, finance and payment systems can affect choices available to countries outside the bloc.

The emerging multipolar world gives Ghana more possible partners, but more partners do not automatically produce development. The philosophy behind this analysis is _African developmental pragmatism_ — Pan-African in outlook, realistic about power, and judged by results.

The test for every relationship should be simple: Does it create jobs, increase production, transfer technology, expand exports, strengthen financial stability and help Ghana retain more value at home? If not, a diplomatic relationship has limited value.

Ghana must pursue _practical multi-alignment_: engage BRICS where it can secure finance, technology, markets or skills; preserve productive relationships with Western institutions; strengthen African platforms such as AfCFTA and PAPSS; and engage Gulf and Asian capital on transparent, project-by-project terms.

*1. What BRICS Can Offer, And What It Cannot*

BRICS deserves serious attention. Its 11 full members make up 49.5% of world population, 40% of global GDP and 26% of global trade (India PIB, 2026). But aggregate size does not create a single treasury, a single foreign policy or a single industrial strategy.

The pro-BRICS case is strongest in practical terms. BRICS presents itself as a platform for trade, development finance, technology, energy, agriculture and global governance reform. The New Development Bank's 2025 annual report shows 115 projects with a portfolio of USD 35.593 billion covering clean energy, water, transport, social and digital infrastructure.

For Ghana, that agenda maps onto real needs: reliable power, better transport, regional trade infrastructure, agro-processing, industrial skills and affordable long-term capital.

But a critical reading is important. Carnegie Endowment research describes an expanded BRICS as more influential but also more heterogeneous, with different interests and different relationships with the US and Europe. The NDB gives BRICS a useful instrument in development finance, but not by itself the power to rewrite global rules.

The emerging BRICS financial architecture may contribute to reform, but scholars caution against assuming it automatically replaces the institutions it criticises. As Ayodele (2025) notes, the question is whether BRICS is creating a genuinely different financial order or reproducing familiar practices in a new setting. For Ghana: value BRICS for options, not mythology.

A summit declaration is a statement of intent. A new lender is useful only when the project is sound, terms are transparent and the asset earns or saves enough to justify the obligation.

*2. Local Currency Alternatives and The Dollar's Continuing Role*

The dollar is still central to global liquidity, but it is not the whole BRICS story.

The New Delhi Declaration shows BRICS is pursuing a gradual financial shift: its BRICS Payment Task Force is studying how national payment and messaging systems can work together, while members discuss trade settlement in local currencies. There is no one-size-fits-all, and no common BRICS currency or single payment rail — evidence of a slower, more practical project.

The change is already visible in some corridors. At the BRICS Business Forum, Russia's economic development minister said the share of Russia's exports settled in dollars and euros fell from 85% three years earlier to 11%. A Reuters report said 90% of Russia's transactions with BRICS partners were in national currencies, and 96% of Russia-India bilateral trade was in roubles and rupees.

But that does not mean BRICS has stopped using dollars. The same report records the Kremlin saying Russia does not seek de-dollarisation and remains open to acceptable payment methods. In practice the pattern is mixed: local currencies are used where bilateral channels work, while dollars or euros remain where commodity pricing, reserves and market depth make them more functional.

The same gradual shift is visible in development finance. Reuters reported that the New Development Bank had raised about one-third of its bond funding in local currencies, principally Chinese yuan and South African rand, and targeted 30% of its financing in member currencies over 2022-26.

The cumulative effect matters: local-currency channels can reduce reliance on a third currency, lower conversion costs and give governments more options when shocks disrupt established routes.

But de-dollarisation language needs discipline. The Bank for International Settlements' 2025 Triennial Survey found that the US dollar was on one side of 89.2% of global foreign-exchange trades in April 2025, while the renminbi's share was 8.5%. That measures global FX-market activity, not intra-BRICS settlement.

It tells Ghana that dollar liquidity, pricing and hedging remain important; it does not prove that BRICS local-currency initiatives are empty. Two developments are occurring at once: the dollar remains dominant in the wider system, while BRICS is building alternatives incrementally in selected corridors.

Local-currency settlement can reduce costs or provide a hedge, but does not make currency risk disappear. Ghana must therefore consider market depth, liquidity, ability to repatriate earnings, loan terms and the currency in which debt service is ultimately owed. A more diversified financial architecture should improve Ghana's bargaining position, not replace financial realism with a slogan.

*3. Ghana's Problem is Production*

Ghana is considering these choices from a position of recovery, not unlimited fiscal space. The World Bank reports real GDP grew by 6.0% in 2025, but projects growth to moderate to 4.8% in 2026 and settle near 5% over the medium term. It warns the recovery has not yet generated enough quality jobs and remains exposed to commodity prices, energy and fertiliser costs and tighter global financing.

Ghana Statistical Service data put headline unemployment at 13.0% in Q3 2025, while average unemployment among people aged 15 to 35 was 21.9%.

Those numbers turn foreign economic policy into a domestic jobs question. Ghana's external partners should be asked what they will help produce in Ghana, which Ghanaian firms will enter the supply chain, what skills will be transferred and how the project will survive after the political ceremony.

The same discipline is needed in commodities. Ghana's official merchandise statistics show the continuing importance of gold, cocoa and petroleum and the prominence of China, India, UAE, Switzerland and South Africa in Ghana's trading relationships. The answer is not to trade less with these markets. It is to move up the value chain: refining gold; processing cocoa; building credible bauxite-to-aluminium and manganese strategies; and expanding agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, textiles, packaging, software and repair services.

Recent reporting on Ghana's gold-sector reforms makes the point concrete. Formalisation, traceability and greater local retention of value affect public revenue, environmental protection and export credibility.

*4. Africa Is Ghana's First Platform*

Before Ghana seeks a larger role in global payment debates, it should make African trade easier. The African Union describes AfCFTA as a route toward a single market and stronger African position in global trade. The AfCFTA Secretariat is based in Accra. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) offers a practical way for banks and businesses to settle cross-border transactions in African currencies.

A peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in Political Science notes African states can use AU and AfCFTA to form issue-based coalitions and negotiate more equitable arrangements, but gains must be institutionalised through capacity and bargaining power.

This debate is also advanced from Ghana through Africa Prosperity Network. Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has advocated a borderless-Africa agenda built around moving freely, paying seamlessly and trading more.

AfCFTA and PAPSS are more immediately relevant to a Ghanaian manufacturer than a distant argument about a new global reserve currency. If a firm in Accra cannot move goods efficiently to Nigeria or Côte d'Ivoire, or cannot settle a transaction without high cost and delay, grand geopolitical alignment will not create a competitive export business.

The World Bank's latest Ghana Economic Update makes the same point differently: Roads carry more than 95% of passenger and freight traffic, while transport remains poorly integrated and climate-vulnerable. Average import clearance is about 14 days, compared with 5 days in Morocco and 7 in Vietnam.

*5. A Scorecard for Practical Multi-Alignment*

Ghana needs a disciplined system for deciding which offers deserve attention. A small Strategic Economic Partnerships Council could bring together Finance, Trade, Foreign Affairs, Energy, Transport, Education, Bank of Ghana, NDPC, GSS, GIPC and private sector. Its purpose would be delivery, not another layer of speeches.

The council should apply one scorecard to every major external relationship: Does the proposal create jobs, raise export earnings, transfer technology, build local suppliers, protect the environment, carry an affordable financing cost and expose Ghana to manageable currency, security and diplomatic risks?

No lender — Western, BRICS-aligned, bilateral or private — should receive a political pass.

The New Development Bank should be one bidder in a competitive financing architecture that also includes the African Development Bank, Afreximbank, the World Bank and IFC, European and British development finance, United States partners, Gulf capital and Ghanaian investors.

Finally, Ghana must do the domestic work that gives diplomacy value: maintain macroeconomic credibility, protect the independence of the Bank of Ghana and official statistics, improve customs and ports, strengthen commercial courts, expand reliable electricity and connect technical education to the industries the country wants to build.

*Conclusion: Development is the measure of independence*

Ghana's independence in a multipolar world will not be measured by the number of summits attended or blocs joined. It will be measured by whether Ghanaian firms can produce more, sell more, retain more value and withstand shocks with fewer choices forced upon them.

That is what practical multi-alignment means. Ghana should be open to all serious partners, dependent on none and anchored in Africa. The opportunity in the multipolar world is real. Turning it into sustainable development will depend on the quality of Ghana's bargaining, institutions and execution.