By: Boy Fidel Leon
The Non-Aligned Movement opened its Midterm Ministerial Review in Kampala with an unmistakable message. The Global South is done asking for a seat at the table. It’s building its own.
Foreign ministers and heads of delegations from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean gathered at Speke Resort Munyonyo to discuss how developing nations can collectively advance their interests in an increasingly fractured world.
The timing felt deliberate. As major powers jostle for influence and bloc politics dominate global affairs, NAM is reasserting itself as the voice of countries that refuse to choose sides.
The meeting opened with sombre news. Raila Odinga, Kenya’s former Prime Minister and a Pan-African figure, had died that morning. Delegates observed a moment of silence. This was a reminder that this gathering represents continuity of struggle across generations.
Over the past year, Uganda has quietly built NAM’s presence across key global forums such as New York, Geneva, Vienna, and The Hague.
The coordination has been methodical. Pushing NAM positions on human rights, unilateral sanctions, and the right to development through UN bodies where most nations have little voice alone.
“Your presence today demonstrates your strong commitment to NAM’s mission,” Odongo said. It was diplomatic language masking a harder reality: NAM countries are tired of being talked about without being consulted.
The numbers tell the story. South-South trade—commerce between developing nations exploded from $0.6 trillion in 1995 to $5.6 trillion in 2023. Yet most flows between Asian countries. Africa, despite having 1.5 billion people, generates only $4 trillion in combined GDP. This is a fraction of what its population should command.
The implication cuts sharply: the Global South is rich in potential but fragmented in execution. Africa trades more with Europe and Asia than with itself. Latin America and the Caribbean remain on the periphery of Asian supply chains. This fragmentation is by design. A legacy of colonialism that persists through economic structures today.
“We must enhance cooperation between Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean to fully realise the benefits of South–South trade,” Odongo said. Translation: stop letting others profit from your resources.
Museveni’s keynote went deeper. He framed global challenges in two categories. The first being oppression by nature such as floods, droughts, disease and the second being oppression by man. The second, he suggested, is worse because it’s deliberate.
“Through knowledge and cooperation, we can overcome both,” the President said. It’s not new rhetoric.
But in a world where technology remains concentrated in wealthy nations and climate change punishes poor countries disproportionately, the argument carries weight.
When China and India industrialised, global demand rose and others benefited. Yet wealthy nations now resist similar pathways for African and Latin American development, citing climate concerns while maintaining their own prosperity.
Museveni didn’t frame this as charity. He framed it as mathematics: a prosperous world needs consumers everywhere, not just in wealthy nations. Inequality breeds instability.
The meeting also reaffirmed NAM’s historical commitment to Palestinian statehood, a position that isolates member states in Western forums but remains central to NAM identity. Odongo called for a Two-State Solution and renewed international pressure to end the occupation.
This is where NAM’s usefulness becomes apparent. Individually, most member states lack leverage to shape global discourse on Palestine. Collectively, representing nearly two-thirds of the UN’s member states, they can frame the conversation differently.
Museveni called for NAM to lead global advocacy for a legally binding international instrument on the Right to Development by 2026.
This is a concept that’s existed in UN documents for decades but lacks enforcement teeth. It’s ambitious.
Whether NAM can actually move the needle depends on whether member states coordinate effectively, something that has eluded the movement historically.
Disagreements between India and Pakistan, between Arab states and Iran, and between different African nations have repeatedly fragmented NAM positions.
Strip away the diplomatic language, and Kampala represents something concrete: developing nations attempting to use collective leverage to reshape global rules that have constrained them for centuries. Not through confrontation with wealthy nations, but through unified action within existing institutions.
The Non-Aligned Movement won’t overturn global inequality this week. But it’s signalling that the Global South is done fragmenting itself for others’ benefit.
Whether that translates into actual coordination remains the essential question, and the harder choice about priorities and unity that has historically proven difficult for a movement born from nations with competing interests.