IBSA at 10: South–South development assistance and the challenge to build international legitimacy in a changing global order

This commentary engages with the IBSA model of South–South development assistance. It focuses on the IBSA Trust Fund to demonstrate the growing political relevance of the partnership in development assistance initiatives. This is followed by an analysis of Brazil’s increasing participation in South–South development assistance in many developing countries around the world. I argue that the strategic mission for the IBSA states in the coming decades, as a new normative/ordering power in international relations, is to further its political authority and legitimacy by expanding and refining its South–South development assistance framework. This can be done by integrating new thinking on environmental sustainability as a central—albeit neglected—pillar of their common framework.