Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA)

• The Indian Ocean Rim Association is an inter-governmental organisation which was established on 7 March 1997.
• The vision for IORA originated during a visit by late President Nelson Mandela of South Africa to India in 1995.

The Structure

• IORA’s apex body is the Council of Foreign Ministers (COM) which meets annually.
• The United Arab Emirates (UAE) assumed the role of Chair since November 2019 – November 2021, followed by the People’s Republic of Bangladesh November 2021 – November 2023.
• A committee of Senior Officials (CSO) meets twice a year to progress IORA’s agenda and consider recommendations by Working Groups and forums of officials, business and academics to implement policies and projects to improve the lives of people within the Indian Ocean Member States.

Members

• From its inception with 14 member states, the membership has expanded to 23 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, the Comoros, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Seychelles, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
• IORA has 9 dialogue partners: China, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Japan, Turkey, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

IORA and India

The Indian Ocean 1. As the third largest ocean woven together by trade routes, commands control of major sea-lanes carrying half of the world’s container ships, one third of the world’s bulk cargo traffic and two thirds of the world’s oil shipments, the Indian Ocean remains an important lifeline to international trade and transport. 2. Home to nearly 2.7 billion people, Member States whose shores are washed by the ocean are rich in cultural diversity and richness in languages, religions, traditions, arts and cuisines. 3. They vary considerably in terms of their areas, populations and levels of economic development. 4. They may also be divided into a number of sub-regions (Australasia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Eastern & Southern Africa), each with their own regional groupings (such as ASEAN, SAARC, GCC and SADC, to name a few). 5. Despite such diversity and differences, these countries are bound together by the Indian Ocean.