On May 16, 2023, Ambassador Mohamed Al-Orabi, Chairman of the Council, participated in the first panel discussion titled “Global security and economic challenges: the role of the Non-Aligned Movement” of the event organized by the Azeri Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center), which was held in Baku under the slogan “From Bandung to Baku: The Non-Aligned Movement in a Complex and Changing Global Context.” In this regard, ECFA Chairman, on behalf of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, expressed his sincere gratitude and appreciation to the Center of Analysis of International Relations and its Chairman, Dr. Farid Shafiyev, for organizing this important event, for the kind invitation to participate in it, and for the warm hospitality. He also expressed delight at the convening of such great forum, and the participation of the brothers, ladies and gentlemen, from the various countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, expressing his confidence that the conference will be an additional important link on the path of constructive cooperation and fruitful ties between the members of the Movement, especially at this critical stage the entire world is witnessing.

Ambassador Al-Orabi added that today’s world is full of enormous and unprecedented challenges and threats at all levels. Within a few years, the world witnessed a sharp conflict among the major powers, on the commercial level, as well as between the United States and China, or that geopolitical one, as between Russia and the West, which culminated in the outbreak of the ongoing armed confrontation in the Ukrainian territories since February 2022, whose repercussions led to increasing the already existing fears linked to issues of disarmament, terrorism, extremism, climate change, scarcity of resources, as well as the gap between developed and developing countries, increasing rates of poverty and social marginalization, forced displacement, exacerbation of asylum and migration, the increase in organized crime, and disparity in access to basic economic and social benefits around the world. There is no doubt that the importance of these issues has increased in the past few years, taking into account the successive international changes and challenges, especially in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The summit meeting of the Contact Group of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was held in early March 2023 in Baku, sought to deal with it and address it as much as possible.

In this context, these crises revealed the feeling of many countries, especially the developing ones, that their interest requires them to adopt positions that are not biased towards any of the parties to the ongoing conflicts and to move away from the position of any of them completely. Hence, the members of the Movement must intensify their efforts to rebuild and strengthen their capabilities in order to defend a fair, peaceful and cooperative multilateral global order. Rather, the current circumstances, despite their bleakness, provide space for reviving the Movement as a soft balancing mechanism against powerful states, by attempting to delegitimize the threatening behavior of the major powers, especially through its activity in the United Nations and other international forums such as the Disarmament Committee and the numerous resolutions issued by International Organization. Perhaps it is necessary now to consider transforming the Movement into an international organization, established on the basis of an international document, with a permanent structure and institutional mechanisms that enhance the ability of member states to adapt to changing conditions in international relations, benefiting in this from their huge capabilities and enormous political weight on the international arena.