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President Yoweri Museveni is today, Friday set to officially take over the rotating three-year chairpersonship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on behalf of Uganda from Azerbaijan.

Information minister Chris Baryomunsi says the handover ceremony is expected to take place this morning at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort Hotel in Kampala.

Information minister Chris Baryomunsi. (New Vision/File)

“The senior officials and ministerial meetings have gone on well and there will be an opening ceremony today where the leadership of NAM will officially be handed over to our President and there will be a number of speeches and discussions up to Saturday,” the minister said on January 19, 2024.

NAM

NAM was founded in 1961 in the middle of a world split by antagonism between US and the former Soviet Union and the alliances they led.

It was created to enable developing countries to assert their independence from the competing claims of the two superpowers and advance their interests.

However, with the end of the Cold War in late 1991, the movement has since redefined itself as a bloc for countries that are not formally aligned with any major power.

NAM now comprises 121 countries — 54 from Africa, 39 from Asia, 26 from Latin America and the Caribbean and two from Europe.

It also includes the non-UN member state of Palestine, 17 other observer countries and 10 observer organisations.

The bloc’s five principles are; mutual respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence.

Also chairing G77+China

The NAM summit is followed by that of G77+China, which officially kicks off on Saturday at Munyonyo.

Uganda will also chair this Group, which was established in June 1964 by 77 developing countries and it now has over 130 member states, for the whole of this year. 

China is not a member but has been supporting and co-operating with the group under the framework of “G77 and China”

The two blocs of NAM and G77+China have a combined population of 6.4 billion people, according to Museveni.

“I want to use those occasions as one of the third generation of the anti-colonial resistance fighters of Africa to put our humble ideas to the world. The gist of our ideas could be summed up in the slogan ‘down with philosophical, ideological and strategic shallowness’,” he told the 27th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth in Kampala recently.

“We are not like reptiles; we think better because we walk on two legs,” Museveni added.