Beyond the G7

For much of modern history, the global economy has been an exclusive club run by a handful of powerful nations. The United States, China, and a few others have written the rules, dictated trade flows, shaped financial systems, and controlled the technologies that determine who thrives and who lags behind. Emerging economies — nations in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — were expected to follow, not lead. They provided raw materials, cheap labour, and markets for finished goods but rarely had a say in the governance of global commerce. That era, however, is beginning to crack. As technology decentralises economic power, geopolitical alliances shift, and innovation spreads beyond traditional centres, emerging economies are no longer content with playing by someone else’s rules. Increasingly, they are rewriting them.

The existing economic order was designed to maintain the dominance of the Global North. Rich nations use agricultural subsidies to prop up their industries, distorting markets and crushing competition from the South. Africa, for instance, struggles to compete with heavily subsidised U.S. cotton exports, which flood global markets at artificially low prices. Similarly, while developed economies champion free trade in principle, they often raise tariffs in sectors where they are already dominant, locking out foreign competitors and shrinking profit margins for exporters in the Global South. Advanced economies also monopolise high-value production — the manufacturing of sophisticated technology, pharmaceuticals, and intellectual property — while leaving developing nations stuck in low-value roles like raw material extraction and basic assembly. Even when emerging countries supply the products, the majority of profits are captured by those who own the technology or the final stages of production. On top of that, restricted access to cutting-edge technologies ensures that many developing nations remain dependent, unable to climb higher up the value chain.

Yet these structural disadvantages are increasingly being challenged — and technology is leading the charge. India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a prime example of how emerging economies can innovate on their own terms. In less than a decade, UPI has revolutionised digital transactions, accounting for 83.7% of India’s digital payment volume and nearly half of global real-time payments. It has transformed how Indians pay for everything from luxury goods to vegetables, bypassing traditional credit card networks and even banks. The implications go beyond convenience. UPI demonstrates that emerging economies can build infrastructure that is not only globally relevant but globally dominant. China’s WeChat Pay and Alipay offer similar lessons: by creating systems tailored to local needs and realities, these nations have leapfrogged older financial technologies rather than playing catch-up. Such examples prove that innovation is not the monopoly of the West — and that emerging economies can disrupt entrenched systems instead of merely adapting to them.

But this shift is not happening without friction. Trade tensions, especially those rooted in the US–China rivalry, have led to tariff wars and protectionist policies that ripple across global supply chains. Conflicts like the Israel–Palestine crisis have destabilised vital trade routes such as the Red Sea, raising costs and uncertainty for exporters in developing nations. Meanwhile, the global financial system remains anchored to the U.S. dollar, which accounts for roughly 58% of global reserves and gives Washington disproportionate leverage over international trade. Yet, even here, change is brewing. The BRICS bloc is exploring alternatives to dollar dominance, from cross-border payment systems to a potential “BRICS currency” designed to facilitate trade among member states. Although India stated in August 2025 that de-dollarisation isn’t a near-term goal, its push for local currency settlement within BRICS signals a broader desire: to reduce dependence on Western-controlled systems and create financial structures that serve the interests of emerging economies.

Opportunities for rewriting the rules are everywhere — but they must be seized deliberately. India’s UPI, with over 185 billion transactions worth ₹261 trillion, shows how homegrown innovation can scale globally. Emerging markets are projected by the IMF to grow at 4.1% this year, compared to just 1.7% in advanced economies. That growth isn’t just a statistic; it’s a sign that economic dynamism is shifting southward. Climate technology is another arena where emerging nations can lead. India’s ambitious plan to install 500 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2030 and Brazil’s efforts to position itself as a green-tech hub are not just environmental imperatives — they are economic strategies. By owning the technologies of the future, these nations can shape global standards, supply chains, and policies rather than merely adapting to those set elsewhere.

The numbers tell a clear story. BRICS economies now account for about 40% of global GDP and are growing more than twice as fast as the G7. China and India alone contribute a significant share of global growth, fuelling demand, driving innovation, and reshaping trade routes. Their influence extends beyond GDP. Through new financial institutions like the New Development Bank and initiatives such as China’s Belt and Road, emerging powers are building parallel systems of infrastructure finance and trade cooperation that operate outside traditional Western-dominated frameworks.

This isn’t just a redistribution of wealth — it’s a redistribution of power. The post-war order, built around the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, was designed for a world where the G7 set the rules and everyone else followed. That world is fading. A new era of shared rule-making is emerging, one in which power is more distributed, institutions are more inclusive, and rules reflect a broader range of interests. Emerging economies are not simply reacting to global shifts — they are driving them.

We stand on the brink of a multipolar economic future. The old order, dominated by a handful of advanced economies, is giving way to a more dynamic, contested, and collaborative system. Technology, demographics, innovation, and ambition are empowering nations once dismissed as peripheral to become central players. The question is no longer whether emerging economies can rewrite the rules — they already are. The real question is how the rest of the world will adapt to an era where economic power is not concentrated in Washington, Brussels, or Beijing alone, but distributed across New Delhi, São Paulo, Johannesburg, Jakarta, and beyond. The global economy is being reshaped — not by the few, but by the many.