Comment: Agenda before NAM. (1995, 20 Marks)
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was founded in 1961 to give newly independent states autonomy of judgement between two blocs. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 removed that frame. Some members questioned whether it should continue, and the movement was described as “in search of an agenda”. The Jakarta summit (September 1992) and the Cartagena summit (October 1995) answered by shifting from bloc politics to development and the democratisation of world order. The agenda was rich; the capacity to deliver it was not.
Redefining the purpose
- Autonomy under unipolarity: P. V. Narasimha Rao restated non-alignment as the espousal of every nation’s right to independence and development, whether there is one bloc or more. The task was to resist a Northern concert of powers rather than to stand between two camps.
- Internal reform: no secretariat, consensus-only decisions and silence on conflicts between members (Iraq–Kuwait in 1990, the break-up of founder Yugoslavia) had exposed the movement. It needed sharper priorities and follow-up machinery.
The economic agenda
- North–South dialogue: debt relief, stable commodity prices, technology transfer and fairer terms of trade, the unfinished NIEO programme.
- Globalisation and the WTO (1995): defending policy space against TRIPS and resisting “new issues” such as labour and environmental standards being attached to trade as conditions.
- Bretton Woods reform: voice and votes in the IMF and World Bank, and resisting the movement of economic questions out of the General Assembly into weighted-vote institutions.
- South–South cooperation, coordinated with the G-77.
- India’s dilemma: liberalising after the 1991 crisis, India had to reconcile Southern solidarity with integration into the world economy and closer ties with the United States.
Political and security agenda
- Democratising the UN: Security Council expansion, restraint on the veto, and caution against selective use of Chapter VII and humanitarian intervention that erodes sovereignty.
- Disarmament without discrimination: the NPT was extended indefinitely in May 1995 and test-ban negotiations were under way. NAM pressed for time-bound elimination of nuclear weapons and criticised export-control cartels outside the UN.
- Unfinished self-determination: Palestine above all. The end of apartheid in 1994 and South Africa’s entry into the movement closed one founding campaign.
New concerns
Environment with common but differentiated responsibilities (Rio, 1992), terrorism, drug trafficking, refugees, and the selective use of human rights as conditionality. The demand for a fair information order also continued.
Assessment
- Critics: C. Raja Mohan (2016) calls it a movement “in coma”, dysfunctional well before 1991 because so many divergent interests could never be harmonised. Others urged that it declare its mission accomplished and dissolve.
- Defenders: Hans Köchler argues that the unipolar moment only temporarily stripped non-alignment of salience and that NAM can act as a balancing force if it adapts. T. V. Paul sees lasting value in soft balancing by weak states. The North–South grievances plainly outlived the Cold War.
- The real problem was focus: a body that issues positions on everything wastes its numerical majority. It needed a few issues where numbers count: coercive measures, finance, technology and UN reform.
Conclusion
The agenda set in the mid-1990s is still largely the agenda today. The Kampala summit (2024) centred on Gaza, voting shares in the IMF still lag the South’s economic weight, and the 2026 NPT Review Conference again failed to reach consensus. NAM’s problem was never a shortage of agenda but a lack of instruments and priorities. With Uganda chairing until 2027 and Uzbekistan next, its relevance depends on turning the shared ethos of strategic autonomy into a few deliverable demands.