INFID: Indonesia Has Strategic Opportunity to Promote Inclusive Development in BRICS

The International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) assesses that Indonesia has a strategic opportunity as a member of BRICS to promote a more inclusive development agenda. “BRICS must become an alternative force that demonstrates that development can go hand in hand with respect for workers’ rights, reduction of inequality, and social justice,” said INFID Executive Director Siti Khoirun Ni’mah in a statement in Jakarta on Monday. Siti believes Indonesia can use the BRICS forum to champion several important issues, particularly in the field of labour. “Firstly, decent work protection standards, including for workers in the energy sector, which are in line with workers’ rights such as fair wages, the elimination of gender-based violence, and the right to associate and assemble,” she said. Furthermore, Siti said that South-South cooperation needs to be encouraged to strengthen universal social protection, not merely to increase investment flows. The next issue Indonesia can promote within the BRICS forum is a green industrial policy oriented towards creating decent jobs and an inclusive and sustainable economic transformation. Lastly, a joint accountability mechanism is needed so that BRICS labour commitments do not stop at political declarations, but become measurable and implementable policies. “BRICS will lose its relevance if it merely becomes a new economic forum with old development patterns, while the global community now needs cooperation that places people, workers’ rights, and social justice at the centre of economic transformation,” said Siti. Indonesia recently participated in the 12th BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting held in Hyderabad, India, the previous week. The meeting produced the 2026 BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Declaration, which places the expansion of social protection, labour market formalisation, increased women’s participation, skills development, and digital transformation as the main agenda for labour cooperation. “This skills development commitment must be accompanied by efforts to address the real skills readiness gap, one of which is green skills or expertise in developing a sustainable green industry, particularly in Indonesia,” said Siti.