That more than 60 leaders of countries and international organizations are attending the ongoing BRICS Summit in Johannesburg highlights the growing profile of this group on the global stage.

And the fact that more than 40 countries have expressed an interest in joining the group shows its appeal among developing countries as a platform to have their say in global governance and decision-making.

The global governance system dominated by the US and its Western allies does not heed the concerns of developing countries, so BRICS has emerged as the figurehead of the Global South.

BRICS has been welcomed by developing countries because it is a group that endorses the principle of openness, inclusiveness, cooperation and common development, and seeks an end to the last vestiges of imperial power as embodied in the Western architecture for global governance.

Developing countries are still susceptible to the West having control of the levers of power, so BRICS is championing their cause of having greater access to the policy- and decision-making power of the global governance institutions, which have hitherto been instruments by which the Western countries exert their will over the will of others.

The purpose of BRICS is not to confront the Western countries. Instead, it is trying to blaze a new path for the reform of the global governance system so that the interactions among countries are conducted with mutual respect and on an equal footing.

The group advocates multilateralism instead of unilateralism, and partnerships in pursuit of shared interests rather than exploitation of the weak by the strong. The world is no longer what it was 17 years ago. It will do no good for the development of the world and neither for the development of the US and the other Western countries if they continue to look at the growth of BRICS through the prism of their past privileges.

It is high time that the Western countries gave up the arrogance borne of the vestiges of their imperialist mentality and acknowledged that they have failed to give emerging and developing countries their due recognition as sovereign nations. If they continue to consider BRICS as their geopolitical rival, and try to hinder its development or even try to ring its death knell, they will only be disappointed.

The United States and its allies should accept that they cannot keep the Western-centric global order that they have designed intact in perpetuity. They should recognize that the world order they have dominated for decades has had its day, and change their mindset so that they attach the utmost importance to the sustainable development agenda that is the pathway to a fairer and more harmonious world.