South Sudan joins Non-Aligned Movement

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is the largest grouping of states worldwide after the United Nations, has admitted South Sudan as its 121st member. 

Yalchin Rafiyev, the deputy foreign minister of Azerbaijan and current chair of NAM, announced the news on Wednesday, January 17, at the opening ceremony of the Ministerial Meeting of the bloc's 19th summit at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort Hotel in Kampala, Uganda.

“I wish to congratulate the Republic of South Sudan for becoming a new member of the Non-Aligned Movement,” he said.

Yalchin Rafiyev, the deputy foreign minister of Azerbaijan and current chair of NAM, announced the news on Wednesday, January 17, at the opening ceremony of the Ministerial Meeting. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

He also said South Sudan is the last African country to join NAM, which was founded in 1961 in the middle of a world split by antagonism between the USA 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.  

South Sudan is the world’s youngest country, having gained independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, as the outcome of a 2005 agreement that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war in which some 1.5 million people died. 

It is an oil-rich country, but one of the least developed in the world.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is the largest grouping of states worldwide after the United Nations. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

At the ongoing summit, Uganda is taking over as chair from Azerbaijan for the next three years.  

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. 

NAM's five principles are; mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence.