Uganda to host Non-Aligned Movement and G77 gatherings in January

• Uganda will host two major international gatherings in January next year, a week apart.
• According to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the Non-Aligned Movement and G77 gatherings will present Uganda with an opportunity to market its tourism industry.
• At the gatherings, Uganda will assume the chairpersonship of Non-Aligned Movement for the next three years while taking over the G77 leadership for a year.

In January next year, Uganda will host the 19th Summit of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Heads of State and Government, as well as the third South Summit organised under the framework of the Group of 77 and China.

During the events, Uganda will take over the NAM chairpersonship for three years, as well as the leadership of the G77 and China for a year.

Uganda's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, John Mulimba, said in an address to parliament yesterday that both gatherings were going to be major tourism boosters for the country.

"Uganda's chairmanship of the two summits will provide a platform to market Uganda's unique tourism and investment opportunities to a larger and wider community of international actors," Mulimba said.

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During the same parliamentary sitting, Abdu Katuntu, the legislator for Bugweri County, said Uganda was more than capable of hosting such a gathering, having hosted the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) successfully.

Katuntu said:

The 19th Summit of NAM will run from 15 to 20 January while the G77 and China summit will be from 21 to 23 January, both at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in a statement that the two gatherings were a "forum for global cooperation and solidarity and for advancing our common goals."

NAM was created in 1961 with the goal of advancing the interests of developing countries in the context of the Cold War.

The movement was instrumental in decolonisation, the foundation of newly independent states, and the democratisation of international relations during its first three decades.

The NAM now consists of 120 countries, accounting for more than 60% of the UN's total membership.

The Group of 77 (G77) was formed on 15 June 1964, by the signing of the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries" at the close of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

To this day, the G77 is the largest intergovernmental organisation of developing countries, serving as a forum for South-South countries to articulate and promote their collective economic interests.

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