Non-Aligned Movement, established in 1961, was an apt response to the the bipolar Cold war contest and a manifestation of Afro –Asian cooperation and source of ‘moral force’ which sought to reinforce the self-determination and independent foreign policy of newly decolonized world. However, it faces a number of challenges today:

• Question of relevance: With the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Warsaw Pact, the world order changed from bi-polar to unipolar. USA emerged as single superpower. MEA Dr. Jaishankar called NAM a concept of a bygone era.
• Lack of regular summits: With India as a critical member, the country had not attended a number of summits between 2016-19 wherein Dr. Jaishankar argues that recent world has seen the rise of groupings like BRICS, G20, ASEAN, SCO etc which have overshadowed NAM.
• Failed to resolve regional tensions: In the era of cold war the tension in South Asia escalated due to regional conflict between India-Pakistan. NAM failed to avoid tensions in the region, that further led to the nuclearisation of the region.
• Other issues include lack of internal coherence and leadership, membership crisis and that most of the countries are weak.
• NAM remains a credible platform for engaging with Global South. This was highlighted with the conduct of online summit in 2020 titled "United Against Covid-19" to address the global struggle to fight the Covid19 pandemic and supporting NAM to increase its role in dealing with and mitigating the outcomes caused by this disease in NAM, as well as other countries.
• Need for reinvigorated multilateralism (Shyam Saran) which the UN has failed to do. NAM can play a crucial role by pushing for reforming and strengthening the United Nations. Beginning of new rivalries- US, China, Russia.
• For the developing countries this multipolarity presents an uncertain, complex and gloomy environment led by a Norther Concert of Powers- Neo-colonialism, Civil Strife.
• The world continues to be divided into the nuclear ''haves'' and ''have-nots''. The nuclear ''haves'' seem to be determined to retain their arsenals of the nuclear weapons- the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons was especially pushed by Global South.

Addressing the challenges

• New Charter and regular summits: As T.V. Paul remarks about NAM, there is space to resurrect the old movement as a soft balancing mechanism against powerful states. One of the most important reforms required by NAM to maintain its relevance in contemporary global politics is to develop a charter stating a specific vision and goals that go beyond the Cold War bipolarity and holding regular summits.
• Soft- balancing: T.V. Paul further highlights the need to develop a new ‘Bandung spirit’ which takes into account the new realities of global politics. He remarks that NAM countries could engage in soft balancing of this nature hoping to delegitimise the aggressive behaviour of the great powers.
• Permanent Secretariat: As global politics gets more technical and complicated with the emergence of issues like climate change, nuclear proliferation, global and new terrorism, pandemic and health crisis, trade wars, NAM requires a permanent secretariat as well as staff that can keep working on these issues and produce credible data in between summits.
• Strict Membership Criteria: NAM also needs to strengthen its membership rules. The conditions for NAM were extremely vague and rooted in a specific context. The same need to be updated and enforced strictly.
• Coherent functions and strategy: Further as Dr. Jaishankar stated, there is need to revitalise the current arrangements and working methods of our Movement, to allow us to pursue a positive and forward-looking agenda. This includes NAM moving beyond just an ideological grouping towards evolving a more pragmatic role- need to be realigned with the concerns of present time example: climate change, terrorism, healthcare, cold war 2.0, etc.
• NAM needs to indulge in ‘norm entrepreneurship’ with concrete initiatives including engagement with emerging states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping. Engaging China and India more intensely while restraining the U.S. and Russia from aggravating military conflict in Asia-Pacific can be the effort of the developing countries.