Is the so-called Non-Aligned Movement still breathing?
President Cyril Ramaphosa skipped the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a rather lowkey event as it turned out last week. Instead, he sent a ministerial delegation led by finance minister Enoch Godongwana to this gathering of the rich and famous.
However, Ramaphosa did make time to attend a summit of the NonAligned Movement (NAM) in Uganda. The movement was formed at the height of the Cold War between the US-led Western world order and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The club comprised more than 100 African, Asian and Latin American countries, and the central organising idea behind its formation was to not pick a side between the two protagonists in the war.
The NAM’s founders included luminaries such as Jawaharlal Nehru (India), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia) and
Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt). Though its mission was noble, its successes have been modest. And, while nonaligned in name, the members’ countries inevitably became entangled in the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union. Africa’s former anticolonial movements, including SA’s governing ANC, received in-kind and cash support from the Soviet Union for decades, making a mockery of the claim to be nonaligned.
The world has since dramatically changed. The US-led Western order is facing multiple challenges. After five years of retrenching its role in global military, humanitarian and economic affairs, the US finally returned to world affairs when Joe Biden defeated the erratic Donald Trump in presidential elections in 2020. And in an ill-advised move, the UK left the EU, reducing its influence on the European continent and in the world. Terrorism and immigration challenges have also forced the EU to be inward-looking.
At the same time there were two other developments. First, Russia was kicked out of the Group of Eight (G8), the club of the world’s richest nations, and with it out of the bloc the West’s sway on Moscow became weaker. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 there were no credible mechanisms to negotiate a bloodless end to the conflict.
With no back channels, the West resorted to punitive economic sanctions against the Kremlin and its oligarchs. In addition, it armed the Ukrainian army. Still, these measures have proved insufficient to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to concede.
In the meantime, the West has become distracted by the war in Gaza over the past two months.
Quite rightly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed concern that the Gaza war is becoming a new focus for the West, more than his country’s resistance to Russian aggression.
Even though its economy has weakened, especially after the West stopped buying its gas, Russia remains a significant military force. Its nuclear arsenal — and possible deployment — keeps many Western leaders awake at night.
The second important development since the NAM’s formation has been the rise to superpower status of China, especially in the past decade. Even though it still defines itself as a developing country, and honorary member of the so-called Global South, China is for all intents and purposes a developed country by most metrics.
Conceptually, defining itself as a member of the Global South is appealing, and has enabled it to advance its soft power across the developing world. This has largely been through the implementation of its Belt & Road Initiative, an ambitious intercontinental multibillion-dollar infrastructure investment programme.
Though the benefits of the decade-old Belt & Road Initiative are not obvious at home, the programme has provided employment to Chinese people abroad, and provided loans to finance economic infrastructure, mostly to fuel China’s growth and industrialisation.
When he finally woke up to China’s new superpower status, then US president Trump resorted to a trade war, slapping import tariffs on Chinese products. This proved a blunt instrument, largely because he acted alone. The West has yet to fashion a credible coexistence strategy with Beijing.
In the decades preceding the Uganda summit the NAM watched these developments with mixed feelings. The Trump era of no interest, and the West’s failure to contain him, has portrayed the West as ideologically unreliable as a partner to the Global South.
After Trump’s withdrawal from many multilateral pacts little was done by the West to honour commitments to the Global South. A case in point is the financial support for developing countries that are worst-affected by climate change. The disbursements have routinely fallen short of pledges over the years.
Russia, with its regional wars, has
IT HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN A COHESIVE BLOC, MAINLY DUE TO ITS INFORMAL STRUCTURE
been replaced by China as a counterpoint to the West. This has not gone unnoticed by the NAM or Global South. Individual members have adopted a transactional posture towards the world’s superpowers.
The NAM has not always been a cohesive bloc, mainly due to its informal structure and the range of issues on its table. This week it provided a platform for members to rail against Israel’s excessive bombardment of the Gaza strip. This was easy. Even Israel’s staunchest allies are finding it difficult to stand behind the endless invasion.
Ramaphosa’s attendance — and that of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres — gave the summit a rare injection of relevance and sign of life. However, it will take far more than high-profile attendees and tactical interventions to ensure it an enduring place in world affairs.