[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.

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.

It developed a number of joint services and of these the most successful and most well known is the multinational airline Air Afrique.

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.