In September 1961, twenty-five newly independent nations met in Belgrade and refused to pick a side. The Cold War was splitting the world into two armed camps. These nations chose neither. That refusal became the Non-Aligned Movement, and it still exists today.
Timeline
- April 1955: The Bandung Conference brings 29 Asian and African states together. It sets the stage for non-alignment, without founding NAM itself.
- 19 July 1956: Tito, Nasser, and Nehru sign the Brioni Declaration. This is a precursor meeting, not NAM’s founding.
- 1–6 September 1961: The first Non-Aligned Movement summit is held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Twenty-five nations attend, plus three observers.
- 2004–present: NAM membership grows past 100 countries, and now stands at around 120.
- 15–20 January 2024: The 19th NAM Summit is held in Kampala, Uganda. Uganda becomes NAM’s chair until 2027.
- 15–16 October 2025: NAM holds its 19th Mid-Term Ministerial Meeting in Kampala. India is represented by Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh.
Must Know
- The Non-Aligned Movement was formally founded at a summit in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, held from 1 to 6 September 1961. Twenty-five nations took part.
- Five leaders founded it, sometimes called the “Initiative of Five.” They were Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
- India is a founding member. It has stayed part of NAM continuously since 1961.
- NAM’s core idea was refusing to formally align with either the American-led Western bloc or the Soviet-led Eastern bloc during the Cold War.
- NAM has never had a formal charter, treaty, or permanent secretariat. It has always run as a loose grouping, with the chair rotating to whichever country hosts each summit.
Good to Know
- The Brioni Declaration of 19 July 1956, signed by Tito, Nasser, and Nehru, is often mistaken for NAM’s founding document. It was really a precursor meeting, five years before Belgrade.
- Belgrade politics were shaped by the ongoing Congo Crisis. The more radical Casablanca Group of African states, including Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, attended in full. The more conservative Brazzaville Group stayed away.
- NAM today has around 120 member states. That is more than four times its 1961 founding membership, and more than it ever had during the Cold War itself.
- The Movement is separate from the Group of 77, but closely linked to it. The G77 is a bloc of developing nations that coordinates on economic issues at the United Nations.
- NAM’s summit is its highest decision-making body. It meets roughly every three years, and the chairmanship formally passes to each new host country’s head of state.
Current Affairs
- 15–16 October 2025: NAM held its 19th Mid-Term Ministerial Meeting in Kampala, Uganda. India’s delegation was led by Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh. The Ministry of External Affairs reaffirmed India’s status as a founding member of the Movement.
- 15–20 January 2024: Uganda hosted the 19th NAM Summit in Kampala, under the theme “Deepening Cooperation for Shared Global Affluence.” About 90 of NAM’s roughly 120 member states took part, including around 30 heads of state. Uganda took over the NAM chairmanship, a role it holds until 2027.
- The Kampala Declaration came out of that January 2024 summit. It condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as illegal, and called for an immediate ceasefire. This reflects NAM’s continuing role as a forum for developing-country positions on major conflicts.
Test Yourself
Great to Know
- NAM grew out of the same wave of decolonization that produced the Bandung Conference. See ModHist0037 — The Bandung Conference: Precursor to Non-Alignment for the earlier 1955 meeting that helped set the stage.
- Non-alignment was also a defining thread of Nehru’s own foreign policy. See ModHist0003 — Nehru’s India: Nation-Building and Non-Alignment for how it shaped India domestically and abroad.
- NAM is one of several groupings, alongside the UN and G77, through which India pursues its foreign-policy goals. See IntlRel0004 — India and Global/Regional Political Groupings for how they fit together.
- The most striking thing about NAM may be what happened after its original reason for existing disappeared. It was built to help countries navigate a two-bloc Cold War. That Cold War ended in 1991. NAM did not fade away. Instead, it kept growing, and today has more members than it ever had while the Cold War was still running.
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