After the onset of the (Western) financial crisis of 2008, there has been a deep questioning of the free market ideology encapsulated by the phrase "Washington Consensus." At least this is the case in South Africa. For a while, there was debate as to whether an emerging "Beijing Consensus" would gain traction and become the developmental compass for the developing world - a model that was "statist" in its approach and inherently distrusting of markets. The Beijing Consensus - a synonym for the "China model" of growth - may be something of a mirage for Africa considering the very different set of developmental circumstances that most African states find themselves in. But that may not stop us from trying. Under President Jacob Zuma, the ANC-led Government often describes itself as a "developmental state" - a government that is all too ready to embrace a new model that supposedly offers a new way, one that places the state as the driving force of growth.

What began as a loose grouping of emerging and populous economies is rapidly morphing into a more coherent power grouping that reflects the shifting balance of power in the global economy - away from the traditional world to the new.

The main (and expected) result out of the recent BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, was the creation of the New Development Bank - a development finance institution but with a leadership and management from the emerging world. The BRICS countries have been under some pressure - most of it self-induced - to institutionalize what up until now has been a loose grouping of emerging economies but with sizeable geopolitical ambitions.

The New Development Bank is likely to be used for increased state-driven infrastructure spend. South Africa seeks to utilize the capital for prioritized regional projects in Africa. The South African Government thus seeks to draw in its BRICS partners into its foreign policy design for the region. In the same way as China and Brazil's development banks have served as tools of foreign commercial policy, so will South Africa's, albeit with a regional focus. Will it be a potential game changer in developmental finance in Africa's economies? This may be premature to consider.

However, I am not convinced that a "state-capital" institution is required in economies that already have open, deep and mature capital markets - South Africa for instance. Arguably, South Africa has the most sophisticated banking and capital market sector of any of the BRICS economies. In light of this, is the developmental obstruction the lack of capital or rather the inability of governments to bring scaleable infrastructure projects to the stage of bankability?

For the new bank to function, it will have to minimize its own internal bureaucracy as well as the respective geopolitical interests of its members - something that will be challenging in each respective region. But undoubtedly the Chinese side will take the lead. No state has been able to implement "development finance" like the Chinese over the last two decades, at least as an enabler of growth in its own domestic economy.

But as the BRICS becomes more increasingly institutionalized, it may begin to challenge the economic architecture set out by the Bretton Woods institutions. Regarded by many policymakers within the BRICS as obsolete and biased toward the developing world, the underlying motivation within the BRICS is to assert their own collective, but hard to define interests against established Western ones. This is the "BRICS Consensus" that is emerging - a wide interpretation of what constitutes the interests of the developing world but one that is inherently opposed to Western inputs on its design.

What is apparent is that developing countries no longer look to the West for developmental guidance, but rather seek to formulate their own state-driven formulas for growth. The rise of the state in seeking to direct capital for development is the obvious trend in many developing economies. But ultimately, the success of the BRICS as a coherent group will be their ability to foster a coalition of values amongst themselves. Currently they know what they are not (Western), but arguably common values are more important than state-created institutions to bind together the strategic interests of states. CA

(Dr. Martyn Davies is CEO of Frontier Advisory and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He is also a member of the Forum's Global Agenda Council on China.)