The Proposal to establish NAM Centre on Gender and Development was announced by the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Malaysia in his Keynote Address at the First NAM Ministerial Meeting on the Advancement of Women held in 2005. To realise the vision, NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women (NIEW) was officially established on the 1st of July 2006 under the purview of the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development.

NIEW has been organising programmes on training and capacity building for NAM Member Countries in critical areas which have been identified as crucial to the empowerment of women such as Women in Politics and Economy, Women in Education and ICT, Women in Health and Violence Against Women.