OPEC, ADB, NAM, NATO

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

• Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an international organization and economic cartel whose mission is to coordinate the policies of the oil-producing countries.
• The goal is to secure a steady income to the member states and to collude in influencing world oil prices through economic means.

• OPEC membership is open to any country that is a substantial exporter of oil and that shares the ideals of the organization → (Currently 13 members)
• The 13 countries account for 40 percent of global oil production and 73 percent of the world’s “proven” oil reserves, making OPEC a major influence on global oil prices

Being an organization consisting of the world’s major oil-exporting nations, OPEC is a cartel that aims to manage the supply of oil in an effort to set the price of oil on the world market, in order to avoid fluctuations that might affect the economies of both producing and purchasing countries.

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966
• Headquarter at Metro Manila, Philippines
• Aimed to facilitate social and economic development of countries in Asia
• From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members, of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside
• The ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with members’ capital subscriptions

• Japan          67%
• United States  56%
• China    47%
• India     36%
• Australia    81%

Non Aligned Movement (NAM)

• Founded in Belgradein 1961 by Nehru (India), Unu (Burma), Sukarno (Indonesia), Nasser (Egypt), Nkumarah (Ghana) & Tito (Yugoslovakia)
• Objective → A group of states which are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc
• Membership is particularly concentrated in countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World
• At present NAM has 120 member states & 15 observer states
• The 17th Summit of the Non Aligned Movement is to be held in Venezuela in 2016

Five principles of NAM

• Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty
• Mutual non-aggression
• Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs
• Equality and mutual benefit
• Peaceful co-existence

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is basically a military alliance, born out of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4th of April, 1949.
• It is a political and military alliance whose primary goals are the collective defence of its members and the maintenance of a democratic peace in the North Atlantic area.
• Headquartered at the Belgium capital city of Brussels, the NATO introduced a collection of defense systems, as a result of which, its member-states agreed upon a common defense system, in the face of external invasions.
• All 28 Allies have an equal say, the Alliance’s decisions must be unanimous and consensual, and its members must respect the basic values that underpin the Alliance, namely democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.

NATO’s Core Tasks

• Collective Defence
• Crisis management
• Cooperative security through partnerships