The Non-Aligned Movement: History, Relevance, & Reform
What is happening?
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum that proposes an alternative multilateral model of the world. The NAM was established at the Belgrade Conference of 1961, its first official summit, under the leadership of Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesian President Sukarno.1 Convening in Yugoslavia, the movement was birthed out of an alliance of these leaders’ non-aligned ideologies, representing a group consciousness built on the joint notion of coordination for national self-determination against colonialism and imperialism. While the NAM enjoyed its ‘Golden Age’ in the 1970s,2 following its growth in the 1960s, its legitimacy as a multilateral forum diminished soon after, and its relevance today remains heavily contested.
The second-largest group of countries after the United Nations (UN) with 120 member states, the NAM was founded amid Cold War confrontations that resulted in increasing international bipolarity, as geopolitical superpowers, the United States (US) and Soviet Union (USSR), competed over global spheres of influence.3 In response, the movement strongly positioned itself with a principle that rejected unilateral, Western hegemony of global affairs. The non-aligned spirit, in its original conceptualization, addresses the “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, apartheid, racism, including Zionism, and any form of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony, as well as the struggle against the policies of big powers or blocs.”4 Significantly, members of the NAM were not limited to what was considered the ‘Third’ or developing world, but also included developed nations who similarly wished to distance themselves from bloc politics and gain wider independence from dominant Western impositions, influence, or commitments.5 In essence, non-aligned countries aimed to independently choose their political, social, and economic systems and ensure resilient developmental futures.
The NAM therefore offered an unparalleled third way for countries to actively preserve their autonomy in a fractured world order, at a time when former colonial territories were gaining newfound independence and the weight of moral force was steadily taking hold of diplomatic affairs. Sukarno and Nehru, two of the five leading figures of the movement, were the first premiers in their respective countries and key organizers of the Bandung Conference of 1955, the first large-scale Asian-African conference hosted in Indonesia that some argue paved the way for Belgrade and the NAM’s subsequent emergence.6 Sharing similar anti-imperial sentiments, Sukarno and Nehru pioneered the ‘Bandung Spirit,’ which was the notion that “national self-definition and transnational unity could be mutually reinforcing when positioned against Western power.”7 Meanwhile, Nasser had already adopted a non-aligned foreign policy that emphasized global cooperation and peace-building through the United Arab Republic after its formation in 1958, which politically unified Egypt and Syria as one country in a “prelude to a Pan-Arab union.”8 Nasser, a prominent pioneer of Pan-Arabism, famously stated that the Republic’s policy “emanates from our land, from our conscience,”9 and saw non-alignment as positive neutrality, which he then defined simply as political interaction in international affairs.10 He was close friends with Nkrumah,11 a key figure of Pan-Africanism who coined the concept of neocolonialism. His ideology, Nkrumahism, highlighted the African revolution for decolonial development and focused on the way independence may be disguised by a neocolonial veneer that ultimately impacts economic systems and therefore political policy as well.12
In an interview for this piece with Dr. Paul Stubbs, editor of Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement, he shared that the connection between Tito and Nasser was the most critical to the NAM’s existence, given that Tito found Pan-Arabism to fit with Yugoslavia’s outlook of increasing coordination with the Global South.13 While Yugoslavia did not share these countries’ colonial legacies, Tito proposed a “global dimension” to the principles of Bandung and headed their expansion at Belgrade,14 becoming a key figure that gathered both the movement’s leaders and their ideas. For Tito, the NAM was a pivotal tool for Yugoslavia to free itself from international isolation15 after the Tito-Stalin, or the Soviet-Yugoslav, split that occurred at the end of the 1940s, wherein Tito became the first communist leader to defy Stalin and seek sovereign policies separate from his control.16 Within the decade that followed, Yugoslavia became increasingly involved in global liberation movements, most prominently through military aid in its support of Algeria.17 Between 1954 and 1955, Tito became the first ever leader to visit India and Ethiopia post-independence, and in 1961, the first European leader to visit several newly self-governing African countries as well, embarking on a 72-day trip around the continent and stopping in Morocco, Ghana, Togo, Egypt, and Tunisia, among others.18
By the end of the 60s, however, NAM’s founding leaders were, apart from Tito, either deceased or deposed. Nevertheless, the movement continued to grow in prevalence under the guidance of new figures, including Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, and India’s first and sole female Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who sought to ensure the actionability of the forum and held a greater focus on economic concerns.19 Consequently, the movement offered wider avenues to address issues that defined relations between the Global South and the Global North. The NAM thereby emerged in its prime years with three main objectives: disarmament, decolonization, and opposition to racism. More specifically, it also sought to alleviate inequalities that separated developed and developing countries, including “poverty, hunger, disease, and illiteracy.”20 Non-aligned countries strove to create a new world order rooted in “justice, equality, and peace,” in fulfillment of the movement’s purpose to “change the current system of international relations based on injustice, inequality, and oppression,” as defined by former Cuban President Fidel Castro in a speech to the UN in October 1979, within his then capacity as the NAM’s chairman.21 Yet, it was under Castro’s leadership that the NAM’s major decline is often ascribed to, pinpointed to its sixth summit in Cuba, which some such as Stubbs argue is overstated.22 At the Havana Conference of 1979, the internal divisions and shifting objectives of its 95 members were more sharply at the forefront than the years prior, hosted against the backdrop of the 1978 Camp David Accords amid a forum that was dedicated to fighting for Palestine’s self-determination within its decolonial agenda, and that thus deepened the movement’s disunity.23
On the contemporary global stage, the NAM continues to push for its original values of cooperation through multilateralism, national self-determination, and most specifically, the inequalities stemming from the world economic order. The 19th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the NAM convened earlier this year in Uganda, which is currently serving as the NAM’s chair for a three-year term ending in 2027.24 Under the theme ‘Deepening Cooperation for Shared Global Affluence,’25 Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister iterated the need for “multilateralism and solidarity” to address ongoing crises at the summit.26 There have been significant calls for the revival of the NAM, alluding to its current dormancy and lack of relevance in the 21st century.27 It has been described as “a once powerful bloc of independent nations” that “is dying and nobody is sending flowers.”28 At the 17th summit hosted by Venezuela in 2016,29 only eight heads of state attended, signaling that interest had decreased drastically and rendering the summit a “lackluster affair.”30 The demise of a new form of non-Western political determination that defined the Cold War era, and the subsequent move towards a unipolar world, marked the loss of the movement’s raison d’être and its significance for member states who had grown dissatisfied with the forum.31 What factors within the NAM’s progression most significantly contributed to the hindering of its voice and power as a global multilateral forum over the decades, and is there a credible way forward for its reform and renewed relevance?
Why is it happening?
In order to understand the NAM’s trajectory, one must first assess the movement’s effectiveness and evolution since its establishment. Within its first three decades, the NAM was integral in issues of “decolonization, formation of new independent states, and democratization of international relations.”32 One of its most important agendas at the time was South Africa’s apartheid, which the NAM was lauded for its role in ending, wherein “material, political, and moral support” to the country in its struggle against racist governance was highlighted at the inaugural Belgrade Conference.33 The NAM later became a beneficial platform for South Africa to form and strengthen its foreign relations following its independence.34 The wider development of an African understanding of “modernization combined with participatory planning processes” can also be linked to the movement.35 In the early 1970s, the Middle East, and in particular Israel’s aggression in Lebanon and Palestine, was similarly prioritized within the NAM. Furthermore, the Belgrade Conference alone was successful in contributing to the movement’s aim of reducing bipolar tensions and shaping the dynamics and geopolitics of the Cold War.36 During the inaugural summit, leaders agreed to write to then-US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, urging the pair to de-escalate their conflict to preserve world peace. A year prior, on September 30, 1960, Tito, Nasser, Sukarno, Nehru, and Nkrumah drafted ‘The Initiative of the Fives’ to the President of the General Assembly, which demanded the East and West’s cooperation for global stability.37 These initiatives contributed to Belgrade’s most praised outcome of cultivating a sense of universal solidarity and iterating the status of the NAM as an unprecedented platform recognizing the mutual interests of the developing world.38
Moreover, reforming the UN was a pressing policy objective for the movement, which demanded the adoption of more democratic processes that would actively include newly independent states and diversify its representational arrangements. As such, the NAM created a Bureau of NAM Coordination and Caucus in the UN Security Council (UNSC),39 which asserted the movement as an essential negotiation player within the organization. The NAM shed light on the structural disadvantages of ‘Third World’ countries in the UN, proposed a critical framework for global economic concerns within the organization, and succeeded in expanding the Economic and Social Council.40 It further “evolved into a pressure group for the reorganization of the international economic system” from 1970 until 1973.41 A decade earlier at Belgrade, its members proposed the creation of the UN Capital Development Fund, which currently supports less developed countries, with the goal of establishing a just global economy.42 Significantly, the NAM has been considered the framework that the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) emerged from, and subsequently, allowed the Group of 77 — the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the UN43 — to become a fundamental aspect of the Conference.44 Several regional economic commissions also developed as a result of the non-aligned spirit that saw great optimism in its first decade and sought to institutionalize itself further in the 70s within the growing international economic order.45 As such, the movement remarkably organized and formulated long-lasting multilateral reforms that propelled the developing world and supported its expansion, exhibiting strength in its combination of both political and economic motives.
At its height, the NAM exercised great political authority and moral weight that cannot be dismissed as being solely due to its strong ideological basis. Its founding figures, and Nasser in particular, were “very skilled at negotiating with both sides, so as to gain ample or maximum breadth of policy decision making.”46 Yugoslavia transferred its influence among the non-aligned to assert its role in European politics, leading to the formation of the Neutral and Non-Aligned (NN) European states, which aided in resolving bilateral issues on the continent.47 In an interview with historian and academic Tvrtko Jakovina, he explained that Tito understood that “small countries are hardly ever shapers, but they can obstruct, […] or can help.” Working in “benevolent self-interest,” Yugoslavia was able to successfully establish ties with richer countries such as Switzerland and Sweden.48 Within this context, Yugoslavia hosted the second Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and integrated national minority protection into its framework, which remains grounded in its successor, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).49 A notable understudied effect of the NAM is what Stubbs coins the “circuits of transnational solidarity” or “decolonial affinity” that witnessed cultural and academic exchanges between its member states, such as the education of students from the Arab World in Yugoslavia.50 This people-to-people exchange, which Stubbs astutely argues is the NAM’s true legacy, also included architects and artists, many of whom remained in what later became Croatia and Serbia. The impact of this remains resonant; for instance, some doctors operating in Gaza today were trained in Zagreb.51 These unexpected material linkages were not limited to relations with the South, but also included connections between Yugoslavia and East Germany, for example, contributing to the architectural development of each respective country.
Nevertheless, the NAM was widely regarded as a failure in preventing wars and interventions in the Global South, some of which were between its member states.52 The NAM’s multilateral reforms were also seen as unsuccessful in “secur[ing] a real change of power,” given the continued existence of veto power.53 In its founding years, debates emerged on the NAM’s ability to establish a unified ideological outlook in addition to constructive and long-lasting policies. Some argue that while member states were politically diverse, they were nevertheless easily unified against apartheid in South Africa,54 and colonialism more broadly, and shared a focus on economic development.55 Others find that the political diversity of the NAM made a collective outlook on decision-making impossible, and even characterized Belgrade as a “sub-United Nations.”56 The sheer number of members in the NAM made it challenging to achieve consensus and therefore impossible to act, in accordance with its founding principles of complete agreement for action, which was unfortunate given its hosting of more than half of the UN’s member states and potential to enact change.57 The inability to act or intervene in ongoing international conflicts subdued the NAM’s stance in geopolitical matters to a merely moral one.
The NAM’s regression may further be attributed to the fact that its institutional organization lacks formal administrative structures, including a founding charter, permanent secretariat, or even a budget,58 due to the fear that permanent structures “might eventually be captured by an aggressive member.”59 Additionally, Nehru had originally joined Belgrade with the understanding that it would be a single event or an informal movement, rather than a long-term formal structure.60 In 1956, Tito, Nasser, and Nehru met in what was an infrequent gathering of leaders from three different continents, where it quickly became evident that they had differing views.61 The latter two positioned their interests more so in relation to Western alienation, whereas Tito was more concerned with overcoming Yugoslavia’s vulnerability to US influence following the Soviet-Yugoslav split that had necessitated aid from the US.62 Nehru further believed that Tito had adopted his Panchsheel principles — the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence, which were crucial in resolving Sino-Indian relations in 195463 — and integrated them into the NAM.64 While it is often historically archived that Yugoslavia was present at Bandung, in reality only a Yugoslavian ambassador and two journalists were reporting from the conference.65 Yugoslavia had nevertheless from the beginning envisioned the NAM’s longevity, which Tito was able to preserve by chance in the 70s alongside the new generation of African leaders aforementioned. Within that decade, however, Castro’s Cuba added a conflicting layer to non-aligned relations, given his desire for a tricontinental international order that members didn’t agree with or wish to sign up to, and that would have isolated Europe and ostracized Tito.66 Leaders thus grew more concerned with their internal governance and self-interest, as countries remained inherently affected by Western domination of international relations despite their attempts to fight it.
Today, the chairing country bears the responsibility for organizing and leading the movement’s affairs.67 In accordance, before the 2024 summit held in Uganda, summits were held in 2019, 2016, 2012, 2009, and so on in periods of three to five years.68 The infrequency of the summit, however, is another root structural factor for the forum’s current decline.
What is being done about it?
The non-aligned spirit of the movement continues to be adopted as a foreign policy tool by several countries, affecting the broader development of modern diplomatic relations. The movement itself was united in the 1960s based on countries’ agreement on issues of foreign policy from a ‘Third World’ stance.69 The NAM’s foreign policy approach has been summarized as “non-membership in any military or ideological bloc dominated by one of the Great Powers; a commitment to equality in relations between nations, large and small, powerful and weak; the right of every country to self-determination,” and peaceful conflict resolution.70 Notably, the NAM shifted the idea of non-alignment as neutral, non-involved, distant, or passive foreign policy, which had been the case until then,71 and that many continue to misdefine non-alignment as today. Rather, the movement introduced a policy of cooperation, positioning non-alignment as being concerned with “engagement and robust diplomacy.”72 Nasser described its core objective by famously saying that “we befriend those who befriend us and are hostile to those who are hostile to us.”73 It is critical to note that the movement’s effectiveness cannot only be measured from an institutional standpoint, but must also consider its integration within member states through the advancement and dissemination of the movement’s ideology. Adopting a non-aligned foreign policy approach is in and of itself a means to preserve the movement’s principles of independent action in geopolitics by more boldly refusing Western hegemony or influence.
In the context of South Africa’s post-independence foreign policy, many believed that “the struggle against apartheid is in many ways the fundamental basis for a human rights culture that should guide the country’s foreign relations.”74 A 1993 article by Nelson Mandela entitled South Africa’s Future Foreign Policy framed its core focus to be on the promotion of democracy, justice, and peace within conflict resolution, and economic cooperation.75 This was the tone ultimately adopted as the country detailed its central foreign policy goals of generating wealth and security, and sought to cultivate a strategic position globally.76 Its commitment also belonged to a wider Pan-African ideal, as advocated by former President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki, who aimed to reignite the continent’s political, economic, and cultural realms.77 The NAM’s approach was integral in the basis of South Africa’s foreign policy, most importantly moving to overcome shared legacies of colonialism, as well as strengthening its relations with developing countries; the latter of which was crucial for the country in its early independence. South Africa, as a result, is a key player that seriously considers the NAM a useful multilateral forum.78 Its positionality affirms the role of the NAM in dismantling decades of colonial rule and apartheid at an integral moment in history. The movement’s impact, therefore, remains felt today despite the forum’s institutional decline.
Beyond domestic foreign policy principles, however, no government is actively trying to revive the NAM, as per H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the UN.79 India, a leading country in the NAM’s establishment and rising power in the Global South, goes as far as defining its position as issue-based alignment, distinguishing itself from non-alignment. The country’s current stance has been described as “multi-alignment,”80 one that may be pushed more aggressively in order to remain an active player in global relations and advance its multilateral ties that often view non-alignment as hosting negative connotations, which is arguably a means to weaken the forum by Western nations. For example, some even declare that Africa’s association with the NAM and its “radicalized States” undermined its voice as a continent.81 Palihakkara further affirmed that while the NAM institutionally “suffered internal inertia and faded away with the ending of the Cold War, the idea of non-alignment lived on, dynamically creating space for emerging nations to pursue human/territorial security and economic prosperity.”82 The NAM, in its original ideation, intended to disseminate a non-aligned political approach to international relations in order to strengthen the status quo of developing countries and their visibility in global issues. It held potential, and succeeded, in collectively enhancing a ‘Third World’ position on the global stage in a powerful collaborative act of counter-hegemony.
However, a key flaw in the non-aligned approach is its ineffectiveness when adopted alone rather than in an alliance, thus making the NAM’s momentum short-lived. Changing geopolitical and economic realities at the end of the century additionally forced countries’ policy approaches to shift, as more had to “sign on to the neoliberal policy agenda, that is to say, engage in neoliberal economic development if not neoliberal politics.”83 As a result, countries were forced to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, both of which arguably adopt neocolonial policies. In an interview with Harry Vanden, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Studies at the University of South Florida, he shared that the rise of neoliberalism “staunched a lot of the creative ideological and independent seeking” movements that founded the NAM, and consequently, developing revolutionary socialist or nationalist ideologies was “no longer viable.”84 This remains true in modern geopolitical developments, where the NAM’s ideological essence is necessary to generate effective action that pushes forward the needs of the Global South. Yet, as Jakovina astutely proposed, countries today lack “the real understanding of the genesis of non-aligned.”85 While under Azerbaijan, the former chair, the NAM failed to be effectively revived in a relevant present context, Uganda’s current chairmanship offers more hope for the movement’s resurgence with regard to economic advancement in particular.
What’s next?
The NAM possesses the potential to position itself as a forum that propels the transformation of global governance, as it once successfully did, from both an institutional standpoint and an ideological one. Member states can better utilize the NAM as a platform to advance progressive multilateral wins and more significant reforms. The NAM’s potential policy revival represents an unparalleled opportunity for nations to shift the nature of global multilateral relations, and more so, the balance of world power. Institutional reform should therefore become a primary goal for current and future chairs of the NAM, as well as its wider member states, focusing on feeding the principles of the movement and the advancement of the Global South back into its structure. As a starting point, member states should collectively draft a Charter that enables greater action on grounds of mutual interest between members, which will legitimize the NAM as an international player, and assert its renewed objectives. Re-introducing the notions of its establishment into contemporary geopolitics would enable its effective engagement and creation of change internationally. The NAM can additionally position itself with a new aim of dismantling neocolonial realities, including the continued legacies of colonial rule that are still prominent across its original members. Moreover, the forum would benefit by moving towards a model that encourages civil society participation — the lack of which was one of its earliest criticisms86 — which would enable collective action and ensure that its platform becomes an authentic voice for its people.
The NAM’s agenda can be reformed through the advancement of two main objectives: South-South cooperation for economic advancement and the reform of the UNSC, building on two of its original goals that remain pertinent today, arguably even more so than in the decades of its formation.87 Firstly, member states, particularly those rising as global powers, should actively work to advance the development of fellow NAM countries by propelling the intellectual advancement of the Global South. The understated influence of people-to-people exchanges enables the intrinsic advancement of countries and resolves the brain drain that has regressed much of West Asia and North Africa. Some key members of the NAM are emerging economies and active players in global affairs, including India and Indonesia, who can significantly contribute to the alleviation of inequalities pertinent to the Global South, and closing its development gap with the Global North. They can also envision the NAM in parallel to intergovernmental organizations such as BRICS, which can elevate the NAM’s contemporary rise due to its distinct form as a trade bloc.88 While BRICS is similar in its desire to advance Global South agendas, it can be seen as more of a “power alignment” amid the multi-polar configuration of international relations,89 and one that doesn’t share the political principles of the NAM given its present economic nature. Thus, the NAM can generate enhanced South-South multilateral cooperation on a wider and more effective scale that can enable North-South dialogue. The overall increase in alternative engagement models is a positive development of multilateralism in the modern world order.
Furthermore, the NAM, hosting roughly 60 percent of the UN’s membership,90 can strengthen its vocalization of the democratization of the UNSC through tangible proposals for reform. While holding the NAM chairmanship, Azerbaijan regarded the UNSC as being “reminiscent of the past” which “does not reflect the modern reality,” and called for the addition of a permanent rotating seat for the countries chairing the NAM, the African Union, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, with a right to veto power.91 Albeit difficult a feat, UNSC reform becomes more plausible with increased South-South cooperation and accordingly, North-South discourse, as do its other goals. Primary areas of concern that should be more vocalized within the UN are issues of climate change and immigration, to which the NAM must increasingly hold the Global North accountable. If the NAM doesn’t acknowledge its policy shortcomings and actively encourage institutional growth, it will solidify its legacy as a product of neocolonialism, representing simply an illusion of power and influence, despite its understated successes in the past. Instead, the NAM can prove itself adaptable and become a forum that challenges neocolonial remains at a global scale. While the movement was created with a strong rhetoric of independence and autonomous foreign policy in response to Western-dominated geopolitical polarization, the NAM can now strive to be an active actor that shapes the international landscape itself.
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The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author, and do not represent Fiker Institute.
