The Full Form of IBSA is‍ India, Brazil, South Africa.

The IBSA Dialogue Forum (India, Brazil, South Africa) is an international tripartite grouping for promoting international cooperation among these countries. It represents three important poles for galvanizing South-South cooperation and greater understanding between three important continents of the developing world namely, Africa, Asia and South America. The forum provides the three countries with a platform to engage in discussions for cooperation in the field of agriculture, trade, culture, and defence among others.

The IBSA Dialogue Forum plays an increasingly important role in the foreign policies of India, Brazil and South Africa. It has become instrumental for promoting ever closer coordination on global issues between three large multicultural and multiracial democracies of Asia, South America and Africa, and contributed to enhancing trilateral India-Brazil-South Africa cooperation in sectoral areas.

• IBSA, formalized at Foreign Ministers meeting in Brasilia in June 2003, has completed celebrating its 15th Anniversary
• IBSA is a purely South-South grouping of like-minded countries, committed to inclusive sustainable development, in pursuit of the well-being for their peoples and those of the developing world. The principles, norms and values underpinning the IBSA Dialogue Forum are participatory democracy, respect for human rights, the Rule of Law and the strengthening of multilateralism.
• IBSA Cooperation involves G2G consultation and coordination on global issues of common concern; trilateral collaboration on concrete areas/projects for the common benefit of three countries; and assisting other developing countries by taking up projects in the latter through IBSA Fund.
• IBSA’s success demonstrates, most vividly, the desirability and feasibility of South-South cooperation beyond the conventional areas of exchange of experts and training.
• So far Five IBSA Leadership Summits have been held. The 5th IBSA Summit was held in Pretoria on 18 October 2011. The 6th IBSA Summit is to be hosted by India. Further, Nine IBSA Trilateral Ministerial Commission Meetings (ITMC) have been held at Foreign Ministers level. The 9th ITMC was held in New York on 27 September, 2018.
• IBSA Fund for Alleviation of Poverty and Hunger, established in 2004, is a unique Fund(with accumulated contributions of USD 37 million) through which development projects are executed with IBSA funding in fellow developing countries. Till date IBSA has supported 31 projects in 20 partner developing countries in the areas of safe drinking water, agriculture and livestock, solar energy, waste management, health etc., with the aim of contributing to the achievement of the SDGs (earlier MDGs).
• The IBSA Fund has been the recipient of several key recognitions including the UN South-South Partnership Award in 2006 (for projects in Haiti and Guinea-Bissau), an MDG Award for South-South Cooperation in 2010 and the South-South Champions Award in 2012 recognizing the work of the three countries in using innovative approaches to share development experiences in other parts of the world. The IBSA Fund project in Cambodia “Empowering Children and Adolescents with Special Needs and their Families” was honoured by the Government of Cambodia in 2013.
• Joint naval exercise IBSAMAR (IBSA Maritime Exercise) is another important part of IBSA trilateral defence cooperation. Six editions of IBSAMAR have been held so far, the latest one being of the coast of South Africa in October, 2018.
• India has instituted IBSA Visiting Fellowships for two researchers each from IBSA countries (through RIS) to carry out meaningful research on the IBSA Forum for better understanding of scholarly perspectives of IBSA partner countries in the formulation and harmonization of their strategies and recommendations. The First round of IBSA Visiting Fellowships concluded in 2018 and the second round of IBSA Visiting Fellowship programme has started February, 2019.
• The First IBSA Gandhi Mandela Memorial Freedon Lecture was delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa on 25 January 2019 in New Delhi, wherein PM Modi was also present.