The BRICS Women's Business Alliance (WBA) and the BRICS Business Council on Sunday, 13 September 2026 jointly called for expanded opportunities for women entrepreneurs, stronger intra-BRICS trade and investment flows, and deeper business cooperation across the grouping. The appeal came during the presentation of the 2026 Annual Report under India's BRICS Chairship in New Delhi.

Women's Economic Empowerment as Strategy

BRICS WBA Chairperson Avarna Jain said women across BRICS nations are already building enterprises, generating employment, spurring innovation, and contributing meaningfully to economic output. She stressed, however, that systemic barriers continue to prevent a full transition from participation to leadership.

'The next step is to enable more women entrepreneurs to move from participation to leadership, from small enterprise to scale and from success in one market to opportunities across BRICS,' Jain said.

Jain framed women's economic empowerment not as a niche or sectoral concern but as a core economic strategy — a framing that positions gender inclusion as integral to BRICS growth rather than supplementary to it. She acknowledged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership in placing women-led development at the centre of India's growth agenda.

WBA's Four-Point Recommendation Framework

The WBA's recommendations, presented as part of the Annual Report, focus on four areas: creating enabling conditions for women-led enterprises to grow; expanding access to capital and innovation ecosystems; strengthening economic resilience through women-led solutions; and scaling proven initiatives across all BRICS member nations. The recommendations are designed to move successful pilot programmes from individual markets to a grouping-wide platform.

Business Council Calls for Deeper Economic Integration

BRICS Business Council Chair Jai Shroff called for greater economic integration through increased bilateral and multilateral trade, cross-border investment, reinforced value chains, technology sharing, and new business partnerships among BRICS nations.

'Our opportunity is to connect the strengths more effectively, to trade more with one another, to invest more in one another, build strong value chains, share technologies and create new partnerships among businesses,' Shroff said.

Shroff noted that BRICS already commands considerable collective economic capacity and argued that the immediate task is converting that potential into tangible opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs on the ground. He said the Business Council's recommendations align with the four pillars of India's BRICS Chairship — resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability.

'Resilience gives our economy strength, innovation gives us competitiveness, cooperation gives them skill and sustainability gives them longevity,' he said.

Broader Push for Business Cooperation

Both bodies emphasised the need for enhanced collaboration and greater private-sector participation across BRICS to convert the grouping's aggregate economic weight into concrete gains for entrepreneurs and enterprises. This comes as BRICS, under India's chairship, has sought to reframe itself as a vehicle for South-South economic mobility rather than merely a geopolitical counterweight. Notably, women-led enterprise development is being elevated from a side agenda to a formal policy recommendation track — a significant institutional shift.

What Comes Next

The 2026 Annual Report recommendations from both bodies are expected to feed into formal BRICS deliberations during India's chairship year. Implementation will depend on individual member-state uptake, though the alignment of the Business Council's recommendations with India's four chairship pillars suggests a coordinated follow-through mechanism is being pursued. The global spotlight on BRICS economic integration — particularly amid shifting US-China dynamics and expanding grouping membership — lends additional weight to the proposals tabled on Sunday.