Ethiopia Revamps Role in Brics

During the First BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting of 2025 kicked off today in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos, on First BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting of 2025, reaffirmed Ethiopia’s commitment to multilateralism and collective security.

The meeting specifically focused on “The Role of BRICS in Addressing Global and Regional Crises and Advancing Pathways to Peace and Security”. In his remarks, Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos reaffirmed Ethiopia’s commitment to multilateralism and collective security.

As a populous and economically growing nation, Ethiopia mostly tends to pursue multilateralism as it helps it to engage in dialogue and cooperation to address shared global challenges. Global decisions and progresses made in the fields of climate change, trade, health pandemics, and security threats require coordinated responses.

As such, BRICS is an ideal bloc that Ethiopia can both share the experiences of other countries in global feats as well as it discharges its responsibilities that it has been doing for the last decades in the region.

The country has been working with commitment to ensure peace and stability in at least neighboring countries when they are in trouble. For instance, Ethiopia has actively participated in peace deals in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan for the last three decades. IT has also contributed peacekeeping contingents in those countries deployed under the African Union and the UN peacekeeping missions. IT has also collaborated with countries under bilateral agreements.

Collective security is a principle of international relations that aims to prevent aggression and maintain peace through a cooperative effort among countries. The concept is based on the idea that an attack on one member of a collective security arrangement is considered an attack on all members. This collective response discourages potential aggressors from initiating conflicts, fostering a sense of security among nations. Historically, collective security gained prominence after the First World War with the establishment of the League of Nations. The League sought to promote peace and resolve international disputes through dialogue rather than military confrontation. However, the Leagues failure to prevent aggression by one member state against another , Ethiopia being a case in point, sets an example to the vital need of due commitment for countries and global organizations for collective security.