Egypt and the Non-Aligned Movement

: The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is the second-largest international grouping after the United Nations. Today, the NAM represents more than 60% of the latter’s members and more than half of the world’s population. Thus, it forms a large voting bloc, especially as it includes many major powers in its membership, which play important roles in the regional and international arenas, and their decisions are taken into account in international issues. Therefore, the movement should take advantage of this great weight in favour of establishing justice and peace in the world, and there is no doubt that its role in this regard has begun to grow in light of the decisive developments and changes that are taking place in the international arena over the past few years. On the other hand, Egypt is one of the founding countries of the Non-Aligned Movement; it has a recognized vital role in founding, building, and developing the movement. Egypt has attempted – in cooperation with its partners - to keep the survival and continuity of the movement, using the latter’s regional and international weight, as it represents the most important framework as well as the broader scope to coordinate the positions of developing countries on various political, economic and social issues of the international system. Egypt also had a clear contribution to transforming ideas related to non-alignment into a tangible reality at the inception of the movement, and it also hosted its second summit in 1964 and the fifteenth high summit in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2009.