NAM

(Reuters) – Leaders from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a group of 118 countries, said the world needs a financial system that is fairer to developing states which have suffered most in a crisis caused by rich countries.

The presidents of Cuba, Egypt and others were addressing a NAM summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The summit on Wednesday and Thursday is the 15th held by NAM, a grouping that has struggled to stay relevant after it was founded during the Cold War by countries which did not want to be aligned either with the Soviet Union or the United States.

Below an extract from Reuters about the background of NAM:

ORIGIN OF NAM:

* The Bandung Asian-African Conference in April 1955 was instrumental in founding the Non-Aligned Movement. That meeting gathered delegates from 29 countries, many newly independent from their colonial rulers.

FOUNDING NAM SUMMIT:

* The NAM was formally set up in 1961 in Belgrade by developing countries that chose not to align with the United States or Soviet Union to avoid becoming caught up in Cold War politics. Twenty-five countries were represented.

* The founding fathers were President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia and President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

* Nasser, a champion of Arab nationalism, was a hero to Arabs for defying the United States and colonial powers Britain and France in the 1950s and 1960s. “We don’t want to become a part of any sphere of influence for any power. That is what the United States has tried to do with us,” he said.

NAM TODAY:

* The movement now has 118 member states, with 15 observer states, representing two-thirds of the members of the United Nations and half of the world’s population. It has struggled to find a role since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union’s collapse.

* The 118 are composed of 53 states in Africa, 38 in Asia, 1 in Europe and 26 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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