From Benjamin Mensah, GNA Special Correspondent, Sham El Sheikh, Egypt

Sham El Sheikh, July 16, GNA - President John Atta Mills has urged developing nations to work assiduously with the South Commission and other international bodies for viable options that would make them more resilient in their quest for reforms in response to emerging global challenges.

He said the end of the Cold War and the attainment of independence rendered the remit of the Non Aligned Movement somewhat obsolete. But this has brought to the fore new challenges of financial recession, effects of global warming, food insecurity, emerging conflicts, human and drug trade that makes the global solidarity of the Movement more relevant as when it was formed.

"These unresolved problems demand of NAM the same broad, intensive and single-minded mobilisation which enabled us to defeat colonialism and apartheid", President Mills said.

The President was addressing the 15th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the NAM in the Egyptian resort city of Sham El Sheikh in Egypt.

President Mills underscored the need for members of the 118-nation body to reappraise the role of the Movement on the world stage and adapt it to new realities.

The two-day summit is on theme "International Solidarity for Peace and Development" and is also examining the role of the Movement in the face of the global financial crisis.

NAM was established in the 1960s to assist member nations in their "struggle against imperialism, racism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as great power and bloc politics."

President Mills said the movement might have defeated apartheid and many forms of racial discrimination but the plight of the world's poor is not likely to change unless NAM comes out with new solutions to the new challenges.

"As events unfold, there is every reason for us to be concerned about the hard won peace and stability as well as democratic gains of the last two decades" President Mills said.

He said the delegation from Ghana was convinced that the NAM should continue to play its role as a moral force in international politics.

"It should endeavour to entrench in the international system the ideal that international controversies and disputes must be resolved by principled dialogue and not military might."

President Mills urged the Movement, in the pursuit of its objectives, to address problems of poor human rights, rule of law and accountability.

The President said the biggest challenge facing NAM was how to harness the demonstrable strengths of member countries in order to make their economies less.

He called on member nations to draw the necessary lessons from the fact that the much needed reform in the international financial architecture had been slow in coming decades after the launch of the New International Economic Order. "There is therefore no opportune time to enhance out co-operation for the promotion of our mutual interest than now," President Mills said. Egyptian President and Chairperson of the Movement Hosni Mubarak, who takes over the leadership from Cuban President Raul Castro, called on the Summit to be used for fruitful dialogue to allow the Movement to elaborate its visions and positions vis a vis issues that preoccupy the world. UN Secretary General Ban Kim Moon called for renewed peacekeeping partnership between contributing countries to the UN peace efforts and an agreed set of goals that would allow for peacekeeping to have the needed political direction.