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The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Winnie Byanyima, has hailed the Global Baku Forum and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for reaffirming global solidarity, inclusivity and equality.

The 2024 Global Baku Forum, which was organised by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC), was held from March 14 to 16 in Baku, Azerbaijan under the theme: Fixing a Fractured World.

“Platforms like the Global Baku Forum, like the Non-Aligned Movement are very important. They reaffirm global solidarity, inclusivity, and equality, and they point to a reformed multilateral system. We need a rules-based global order that is just and based on the consensus of all countries,” she said on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday, March 19.

Byanyima, who said it was an honour to be back in Baku for the second time, thanked Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev for hosting the forum and NGIC’s secretary general, Rovshan Muradov, and his team for bringing them together around this year’s theme.

She earlier said global solutions to global problems are possible and that together they can fix what she called a fractured world.

Uganda’s call for multilateralism

While opening the senior officials meeting of the 19th summit of NAM in Kampala on January 15, 2024, the host nation called for multilateralism and solidarity to tackle several challenges faced by the world.

“Today, we are facing several challenges around the world including conflicts in different parts of the world, food insecurity, migration, unemployment, health pandemics, climate change, and terrorism,” Uganda’s minister of foreign affairs, Gen (rtd) Jeje Odongo, said at Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort Hotel.

Odongo noted that 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, remained an important organization in the increasingly complex international situation.

NAM, which is now chaired by Uganda, comprises 121 states, 18 observer countries, and 10 observer organizations.

He also said they recognized challenges in financing for development and the very serious issue of the debt burden. 

“It is, therefore, crucial for us to address existing, new, and emerging issues collectively for the good of mankind. Uganda believes that multilateralism and solidarity are required much more than ever so that we individually prepare and collectively respond to further challenges,” he stated.