The non-aligned countries were more than merely mediators during the Cold War. The challenge for most of the non-aligned countries - a majority of them were categorised as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) - was to be more developed economically and to lift their people out of poverty. Economic development was also vital for the independence of the new countries. Without sustained development, a country could not be truly free. It would remain dependent on the richer countries including the colonial powers from which political freedom had been achieved.

Identify the country that did not play a role in the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement.

(1) Yugoslavia
(2) Egypt
(3) Indonesia
(4) Pakistan

4

The correct answer is Option (4) Pakistan

The Cold War tended to divide the world into two rival alliances. It was in this context that non-alignment offered the newly decolonised countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America a third option—not to join either alliance.

The roots of NAM went back to the friendship between three leaders — Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, and Egypt’s leader Gamal Abdel Nasser — who held a meeting in 1956. Indonesia’s Sukarno and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah strongly supported them. These five leaders came to be known as the five founders of NAM. The first non-aligned summit was held in Belgrade in 1961.