[3] Moktar Ould Daddah was elected as the president of the organisation while the city of Yaoundé was selected as the headquarters seat.

It was set up at Nouakchott in February 1965 and comprised the original 12 members of the UAM with the addition of Togo.

OCAM dropped the political and defense objectives that its predecessor, the UAM, had attempted to embrace.

It created the structures of an international organization: a Conference of Heads of State and Government, a Council of Ministers, a Secretariat and Secretary-General, and established its headquarters at Bangui in the Central African Republic.

In 1982 OCAM held a summit at Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; it had then changed its name, though only to substitute Mauritius for Madagascar, to Organization Commune Africaine et Mauricienne.