Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru coined the term ‘Non-Alignment’ during his speech in 1954 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The origin of the Non-aligned movement however can be traced to the Asia-Africa conference hosted in Bandung, Indonesia in April 1955. During this Conference, a 10-point ‘Declaration on Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation’, incorporating the principles of the United Nations
Charter and Nehru’s five principles of Panchsheel, was unanimously adopted by the participating countries, most of which were newly independent. The Communiqué of the Conference underscored the need for developing countries to loosen their economic dependence on the leading industrialized nations by providing technical assistance to one another through the exchange of experts and technical assistance for developmental projects, as well as the exchange of technological know-how and the establishment of regional training and research institutes. The first conference of the Head of States and Governments of the Non-Aligned Countries was held six years later in September 1961 largely through the initiative of President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Seventeenth NAM Summits have so far been held, the last one being held at Margarita Island, Venezuela on 17 -18 September 2016. The NAM presently has a membership of 120 countries. Genesis
The Centre for Science and Technology of the Non-aligned and Other Developing Countries (NAM S&T Centre) has been established as an inter-governmental organisation in pursuance of the deliberation of the 5th, 6th and 7th Conferences of the Heads of State or Government of the NAM Countries, respectively held in Colombo in 1976, Havana in 1979 and New Delhi in 1983, and after the adoption of the Statute of the Centre by consensus by the Meeting of the Plenipotentiaries of the Non-aligned Countries in New York in February 1985. The Statute of the Centre was again opened for signature at the NAM Ministerial meeting in Pyongyang in 1987. Upon signature of 31 countries and their accession to the Statute, the Centre came into being in August 1989. The Secretariat of the Centre is centrally located at New Delhi, India in its own premises at the India Habitat Center, for the purchase of which a grant was given by the Government of India. Forty Eight developing countries have so far joined the Centre as its member.
