What you need to know about Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit and Members

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a global organisation tasked with advancing the goals and concerns of developing nations. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were 120 member states in the Non-Aligned Movement.

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Current members of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)Africa Currently, every African country (except South Sudan) is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement.Americas Asia Europe Oceania Former members Observers Countries Organisations

Following World War II, there was a wave of decolonization that gave rise to the Non-Aligned Movement. Many of the participants in the 1955 Asian-African Conference, held in Bandung, had only recently attained independence, and they demanded that “arrangements of collective defence not be used to serve the particular interests of any of the big powers.” They contended that, in the context of the Cold War, developing nations ought to refrain from forging alliances with the U.S.S.R. or the United States and instead unite in favour of national self-determination in opposition to all forms of imperialism and colonialism. Under the direction of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sukarno of Indonesia, the Non-Aligned Movement was established and staged its inaugural conference, the Belgrade Conference, in 1961.

The states that make up the Non-Aligned Movement are required to have signed a bilateral military agreement with one of the “big powers” if it was “deliberately concluded in the context of Great Power conflicts” and cannot be members of a multilateral military alliance like the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Nonalignment, however, does not imply that a state should play a passive or even neutral role in world affairs. Conversely, the Non-Aligned Movement’s declared goals since its foundation have been to support developing nations’ coordinated participation in international affairs and to provide them a voice.

The Non-Aligned Movement lacks a written constitution and a permanent secretariat, in contrast to the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation of American States. Within the Non-Aligned Movement, each member is given equal weight. The Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government, which meets roughly every three years, is where the movement’s positions are agreed upon. The nation occupying the chair, a role that alternates at each summit, is in charge of running the organisation. The member states’ foreign ministers get together more frequently to talk about shared issues, particularly at the start of every UN General Assembly session.

Reevaluating the Non-Aligned Movement’s identity and goals in the post-Cold War era has been one of major problems in the twenty-first century. The movement has persisted in supporting national autonomy, multilateralism, and international collaboration while also becoming more outspoken in its criticism of the injustices inherent in the global economic system.