The 15th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement kicked off in the Egyptian Resort of Sharm El-Sheikh Wednesday on the theme 'International Solidarity for Peace and Development'. More than fifty Heads of State are deliberating on possible mechanisms to foster greater solidarity amongst developing countries with a view to tackling major international and regional issues, including the current financial crisis, climate change, the Middle East Peace Process, food security, energy and nuclear proliferation.

Addressing the gathering Wednesday afternoon, the President, Sheikh Professor Alhaji Yahya Jammeh said the current global economic and financial crisis is one of the most serious threats facing the world. President Jammeh said, overall, the results of globalization have not been encouraging and therefore underscored the need for collective endeavours to bring about fairness and equilibrium in the workings of the international system and the global economic order. Professor Jammeh warned that any measures designed to deal with the current crisis must not preserve the serious flaws of the present international economic architecture, which has proven to be unjust, inequitable and ineffective. Such measures, President Jammeh insists, should be directed towards the required structural reforms and by no means at the detriment of developing countries.

The President said the Doha Development Agenda embodies development concerns, which places the needs and interests of developing and least developed countries at the heart of the Doha work process and called on the developed countries to demonstrate the flexibility and political will to deeded to remove the current impasse in the Doha round of trade negotiations.

Whilst acknowledging the need to enhance and strengthen South-South trade, Professor Jammeh expressed concern at the imposition of laws and other forms of coercive economic measures, including unilateral sanctions against developing countries, which undermine international law and rules of free trade. “It is imperative to note that the recent global food crisis is a consequence of transitory as well as more deep-rooted problems. Food Export subsidies and subsidies to domestic food producers as well as the high tariffs imposed by the developed countries on many agricultural products from the South have discourage production and exports in many developing countries with agricultural potential,” President Jammeh told his counterparts.

The food crisis, he insists should also serve as a wake up call for the international community to reform trade related policies in the quest for food security because poverty, particularly food poverty threatens international peace and security. He therefore called for solidarity and partnership to alleviate poverty and hunger and enhance South-South cooperation in support of special programmes for food security. The President also called for an end to all forms of violence including state sponsored and organized acts of violence.

On UN reforms, the President said any moves in that direction should enhance and strengthen multilateralism and serve as a forum for dialogue, understanding and cooperation. On the contentious situation in the Middle East, President Jammeh said continuous settlement activity and carving of Palestinian territory as well as the violence visited on the Palestinian people are a deliberate attempt at frustrating the two-state solution. Professor Jammeh called for an end to such acts and underscored the need for concrete action to end the occupation. President Jammeh also called for an end to decades’ long economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States.

On the issue of the Western Sahara, the President applauded the efforts of the United Nations aimed at reaching a just and acceptable solution.

The Non-Aligned Movement, established in 1961, is an international organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against the major adversaries of the Cold War era. But with the end of the Cold War, the 118 member organization, which accounts for two-thirds of UN member states and constitutes about 55% of the world’ population, may now bee struggling for relevance in a completely different global order.

Read the President's Statement