---
title: "Plurilateral Groupings: G7, G20, BRICS & Beyond"
description: "Master the plurilateral groupings G7, G20, BRICS, SCO, QUAD and NAM, covering their origins, membership, decision logic and recent expansions for exam answers."
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/lessons/exam-global-institutions-plurilateral-groupings-g7-g20-brics-sco-quad-nam"
---

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Plurilateral groupings: G7, G20, BRICS, SCO, QUAD, NAM

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# Plurilateral groupings: G7, G20, BRICS, SCO, QUAD, NAM

Master the informal plurilateral groupings—G7, G20, BRICS, SCO, QUAD and NAM—their origins, membership, decision logic and 2023-24 expansions for the exam.

## What a plurilateral grouping is

Plurilateral groupings are coalitions of states that coordinate policy **outside treaty law**. They have no charter, no headquarters, no permanent secretariat (with rare exceptions like the SCO), and no binding dispute mechanism. Decisions are taken by consensus and expressed through summit communiqués or leaders' declarations that carry political, not legal, weight. They are instruments of agenda-setting and signalling, contrasted in the syllabus with the treaty-based UN, IMF and WTO covered in earlier lessons.

## The G7 and the G20

The **G7** originated at the Rambouillet summit of November 1975, convened by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in response to the 1973 oil shock and the collapse of Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates. Its members are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada (Canada joined in 1976), with the European Union participating. Russia joined to form the **G8** in 1998 but was suspended in March 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, reverting the format to the G7.

The **G20** was created in 1999 at the finance-minister level after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, and elevated to a **leaders' summit at Washington in November 2008** during the global financial crisis—where it declared itself "the premier forum for international economic cooperation." It comprises 19 countries plus the EU; the **African Union was admitted as a permanent member at the New Delhi summit in September 2023**, making the grouping effectively "G21." India held the rotating presidency in 2023 under the theme *Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam* ("One Earth, One Family, One Future").

## BRICS and its 2024 enlargement

The acronym **BRIC** was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill in 2001; the political grouping held its first summit at Yekaterinburg in 2009, and **South Africa joined in 2010** to make BRICS. Its principal institutional creation is the **New Development Bank (NDB)**, established by the Fortaleza Declaration of 2014 and headquartered in Shanghai, alongside the **Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)**, a $100 billion currency-swap pool. At the **Johannesburg summit of August 2023**, BRICS invited six states; from 1 January 2024 **Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates** acceded (Argentina declined under President Milei; Saudi Arabia's status remained pending), forming what is loosely termed **BRICS+**. Retain these dates—membership and the NDB are perennial prelims fodder.

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