The Non-Aligned Movement, Ghana and the Early Days of African Diplomacy: Reflections on a Developing Country’s Foreign Policy

This paper is an attempt at reviewing Ghana’s foreign policy as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). It examines the key tenets of the NAM and juxtaposes it with Ghana’s foreign policy directions from the early days of Nkrumah till recent times when virtually all African states have taken sides with one world power or the other. It is about the reflections of what the NAM stands for and how its members have been conducting foreign policy, and the successes and failures in the developing world, and the lessons that can be learnt from its existence in the last six decades. We use Ghana as a case for trying to understand the NAM and the conduct of foreign policy. We realise that though the NAM members such as Ghana still believe in the core principles that underpin the Movement, the country’s foreign policy orientation has not always been one of the total non-alignment. Instead, exigencies in the contemporary international system as well as leadership idiosyncrasy and other related matters by and large influence Ghana’s foreign policy.