On October 7, 2017, as part of the Youth day of the Russian Energy Week, the Manege museum and exhibition association held a round-table discussion under the theme of ”BRICS Energy Agenda 2018. A View of Youth”.

The event was organized under the auspices of BRICS Youth Energy Association, which was established in 2015 during the Youth day forum on energy efficiency and energy saving – ENES. The participants of the round-table discussion were young experts, including students of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University). During the meeting the participants discussed current energy agenda of the BRICS countries and the priorities of South Africa as a chairman-country in 2018. The participants drew particular attention to the level of development of youth energy cooperation of the BRICS countries in the energy sector as well as made a number of proposals.

Roman Chukov, a research fellow at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the chairman of the Center for International Promotion, made a proposal to develop a partnership in the energy sector during the BRICS youth parliamentary dialogue. Anna-Maria Chkonia, 2nd year student of master’s degree double diploma program between the University of Sciences Po and the MGIMO-University, urged the roundtable participants to formulate common principles of youth cooperation in the energy sector, acceptable for every single BRICS country. Irina Yutyaeva, 2nd year student of master’s program “Foreign policy”, spoke about the peculiarities of the fuel and energy complex of the Republic of South Africa and highlighted the problematic trends. Valeria Ruzakova, 1st year student of master’s degree in “Legal support of energy cooperation and development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic”, drew the attention of the roundtable participants to the prospects of cooperation between BRICS countries in the Arctic region.

Following the results of the discussion, the participants developed proposals on the energy agenda for the BRICS Youth summit, which will be held in South Africa in 2018, and expressed the opinion that the REW (Russian Energy Week) Youth day could become a unique annual platform in the energy sector for communication of BRICS youth, implementation and for summarizing of joint projects and planning of joint effort for the next year.

During the Final session, the moderator of the workshop Alexander Kormishin presented the initiative of the conduction of “Annual meeting of the BRICS Youth energy Association” within the framework of the Youth day of REW to the Deputy Minister of energy Anton Inyutsyn and to the deputy head of FAYA (Federal Agency for Youth Affairs) Roman Kamaev and received approval. Mr. Inyutsyn noted that the Ministry of energy of the Russian Federation supports the initiative and sets a goal for he youth to expand the boundaries of the forum and invite students and young professionals to participate in the next year.