Uganda is making preparations to host two significant international summits at Commonwealth Resort Munyonyo, Kampala, in January 2024. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) will focus on “Deepening Cooperation for Shared Global Affluence,” while the G-77 South Summit will center around the theme of “Leaving No One Behind.”
The groundwork for these summits began in 2019 when Uganda secured the chairmanship of NAM for the period 2022–2025. However, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the G77 South Summit, originally scheduled for April 2020, was postponed and rescheduled for January 2024.
Hon. Jeje Odongo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, affirmed Uganda’s readiness to host these international summits during a summit-level meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement contact group responding to COVID-19 on March 2, 2023, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The NAM concept originated at the Afro-Asian conference in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, where ten principles, known as the Bandung principles, were adopted to guide the operations of this new international bloc. NAM was established to advance the interests of developing countries amid Cold War tensions and currently comprises 120 countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America the Caribbean, and Europe, which are neither aligned with the East nor the West.
Uganda is set to officially assume the chairmanship of NAM from 2023-2026 on behalf of the African continent, following Azerbaijan, following the geographical rotational basis for the chairmanship.
The Group of 77 (G77), established in 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries, has since grown to include 134 countries from the Global South. Despite the increase in membership, the original name was retained due to historical significance. As the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the United Nations, the G77 enables Global South nations to advocate for their collective economic interests, enhance their negotiating capacity on major international economic issues, and promote South-South cooperation for development.
Uganda will be the third country to host the G77 South Summit, following Qatar in 2005 and Cuba in 2000. The Kampala Summit aims to enhance South-South Cooperation, particularly in the areas of trade, investment, sustainable development, climate change, poverty eradication, and the digital economy, among others.
