Non-aligned movement

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
Member countries   Observer countries
Coordinating Bureau	New York City, New York, U.S.
Membership	120 members 17 observers
Leaders
• Principal decision- making organ	Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries
• Presidency	Venezuela
• Secretary-General	Nicolás Maduro
Establishment	1961 in Belgrade as the Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries
Website csstc.org

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. As of 2012^[update], the movement has 120 members.

The organization was founded in Belgrade in 1961, and was largely conceived by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; Indonesia's first president, Sukarno; Egypt's second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser; Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah; and Yugoslavia's president, Josip Broz Tito. All five leaders were prominent advocates of a middle course for states in the Developing World between the Western and Eastern Blocs in the Cold War. The phrase itself was first used to represent the doctrine by Indian diplomat V. K. Krishna Menon in 1953, at the United Nations.

In a speech given during the Havana Declaration of 1979, Fidel Castro said the purpose of the organization is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics". The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations's members and contain 55% of the world population. Membership is particularly concentrated in countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World.