Institutionalizing Women’s Economic Participation in an Informal Grouping: A Qualitative Study of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance (2020–2025)

Abstract

BRICS is an informal intergovernmental grouping: it rests on no founding treaty and maintains no permanent secretariat. Yet since 2020 it has operated a structured business mechanism for women, the Women’s Business Alliance (WBA), which has developed national chapters, thematic working groups, written terms of reference, and an annual reporting cycle. This study examines how the WBA became institutionalized across its first five years, what thematic priorities it developed, how it connects to the wider BRICS economic architecture, and what forms of institutionalization are observable in its documentary record. The study adopts an instrumental single case study design, applying qualitative document analysis and thematic analysis to institutional documents published between 2020 and 2025, including annual reports, terms of reference, issues notes, and handover reports. Four findings emerge. First, the Alliance developed a replicated national-chapter template combined with cross-cutting thematic working groups, producing structure without central authority. Second, it substituted for the absence of a permanent secretariat through three mechanisms: a rotating chairship aligned to the BRICS presidency, the designation of a sherpa and national executive secretariats, and a shared digital platform. Third, its thematic agenda remained stable across successive chairships while individual initiatives varied by host country. Fourth, institutionalization is observable primarily in documentary and procedural form rather than in legal or financial delegation. The study contributes to scholarship on informal intergovernmental organizations by showing how structure develops within a subsidiary body of an informal grouping and offers the first systematic institutional account of the Alliance.