Archive · 14 Sep 2026
BRICS Urged to Build Traditional Knowledge Alliance Beyond De-dollarisation
BRICS is a group of countries that already discusses financial cooperation.
Kumaar says it should also cooperate on traditional and indigenous knowledge.
This knowledge includes practices related to health, farming, nature and human well-being.
Much of it is not well represented in major digital databases.
A Traditional Knowledge Alliance could help countries document, translate and study these traditions.
It could also support careful use of traditional knowledge today.
Communities would need protection so others could not take or profit from their knowledge unfairly.
The idea is to make BRICS more independent in both money and knowledge.
Kumaar argues BRICS should create a Traditional Knowledge Alliance alongside its financial sovereignty agenda.
The New Delhi Declaration recognizes traditional and indigenous knowledge within BRICS cooperation.
The proposed alliance could connect research on documentation, translation, testing and responsible applications.
Potential focus areas include preventive healthcare, mental well-being, nutrition, agriculture and climate resilience.
Kumaar says intellectual property, community ownership, benefit-sharing and protection against biopiracy are essential.
- Who
- Kumaar is proposing that BRICS countries create a Traditional Knowledge Alliance.
- What
- The proposal would connect existing BRICS initiatives on traditional, indigenous and local knowledge, including work on traditional and integrative medicine.
- When
- The New Delhi Declaration has already recognized traditional and indigenous knowledge in BRICS cooperation; the article gives no specific date for the proposed alliance.
- Where
- The proposal concerns cooperation among BRICS countries and refers to the New Delhi Declaration and BRICS Network University.
- Why
- Kumaar says financial sovereignty would remain incomplete if knowledge and digital datasets continued to be shaped by a largely unipolar system.
- Proposed initiative
- Traditional Knowledge Alliance
- Existing BRICS framework
- The New Delhi Declaration recognizes traditional and indigenous knowledge in BRICS cooperation.
- Potential research areas
- Documentation, translation, scientific testing and responsible contemporary application
- Initial focus areas
- Preventive healthcare, mental well-being, nutrition, sustainable agriculture, climate resilience and human behaviour
- Wellness economy size
- Around $6.8 trillion in 2024
- Projected wellness economy
- Nearly $9.8 trillion by 2029
- Required safeguards
- Attribution, intellectual property, community ownership, benefit-sharing and protection against biopiracy