Build a strategic role for IORA in Indo-Pacific

The Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) is an inter-governmental organisation which is now marking its 25th anniversary. Bangladesh is the current Chair till 2023. The visit of the Bangladesh Prime Minister may bring some attention to the future of the IORA.

The main purpose of the IORA is to strengthen regional cooperation within the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). It has 23 members and 10 dialogue partners. It was established in 1997 as the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IORARC) with a focus on regional economic cooperation. It had 14 member-states to begin with and has since considerably expanded.

India is a founding member and chaired it from 2011-13. In 2015, the IORA was admitted as an observer at the UN General Assembly and the African Union. The Secretariat is based in Mauritius and its decisions are consensual and commitments voluntary. The IORA is perhaps the single ministerial forum which covers the entire Indian Ocean and has significant dialogue partnerships. While it is a liberal developmental and functional organisation, its strategic reach is vast — from Australia in the Indian Ocean to the coast of eastern and southern Africa. India, geographically, lies at the centre of this. The IORA bolsters India’s African partnerships and relationships with the Gulf countries, the island countries of the Indian Ocean, ASEAN and Australia.

The IORA has 10 dialogue partners, including China, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Turkey, South Korea, the UK and the USA. Pakistan is not a member due to its inability to meet the IORA standards.

For almost 20 years, the IORA continued its journey in a genial manner and everything was left to the Chair, who had a two-year term. To give it impetus in 2012, India evolved a six-year plan along with Australia and Indonesia, involving coordination between the three countries for their respective periods of chairmanship from 2012-2017.

That is seen as the golden period of IORA cooperation since all three countries played a significant role in coordination with each other. The IORA works at the level of ministers and it was only Indonesia in 2017 which held a summit. The UAE and Bangladesh spoke about a summit, but it has not been held again.

Bangladesh is the Chair from 2021-2023, during which the IORA’s silver jubilee is being marked. It needs a focus on better working-level coordination. It is a functional body with a large amount of collaboration to build capacities and support for economic and related interface.

Some elements of that are embedded in India’s other regional discussions, like between India and Africa and India and the ASEAN and as part of its Act East Policy. It is important for India that the Indian Ocean remains safe. The Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), as outlined by Prime Minister Modi, covers political, security, economic and socio-cultural spheres. This quite matches the Act East Policy.

The IORA now has maritime security-related cooperation, too. The IORA and the larger Indo-Pacific seek regional peace and prosperity based on a climate of trust and transparency with respect for international maritime rules and equal rights under the international law. Mutual sensitivity to each other’s interests and peaceful resolution of disputes with increasing maritime cooperation are clear objectives of the IORA and of India in the region.

The Indo-Pacific concept is meshing with the IORA mainly because the region covered by the IORA is the fulcrum of the Indo-Pacific. The IORA is one body in which China is not a member, though it is a dialogue partner, as are Russia and the USA. There is undoubtedly a greater movement towards having the IORA become a part of the Indo-Pacific construct. The IORA will naturally move from being a functional organisation to becoming a part of a larger strategic concept.

The IORA could be the functional cockpit of the Indo-Pacific while playing a strategic role for cooperation in the region. Bangladesh, as the new Chair, is expected to look at strengthening the IORA. Bangladesh realises that maritime security and cooperation go hand in hand and blue economy is important for enlarging its ongoing economic growth. It also realises that its chairmanship is at an important juncture.

Bangladesh aspires to leave its own mark as chairman of the IORA and the visit of Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina to India is a good opportunity for the two countries to coordinate their Indo-Pacific policies and strengthen the IORA and its programmes. Bangladesh has an interest in a new action plan: the strengthening of the Secretariat in Mauritius, giving the dialogue partners a larger role and creating a new development initiative.

It is time for the IORA to move to a position where its policies and programmes are firmly guided. In such organisations, this guidance does not come from a consensus among all members. It comes from the driving force of a few with clear thinking and efforts. What India, Australia and Indonesia did a decade ago needs to be recreated and it can be done with Bangladesh, Australia, Indonesia, France and India playing a bigger role.

The question then is how are the deep pockets to be filled? When Bangladesh says that it has a vision for a bigger role of dialogue partners, India needs to be careful that this does not give China an unnecessary headway. As Sri Lanka will be the next Chair, this infatuation with China may be accentuated. To counter that, Japan Germany, France and the UK must come up with larger funding.

That requires an agreement on a core action plan and implemention of the confidence-building envisaged by SAGAR by having specific programmes to promote capacity building and other support systems. Invariably, many of these programmes overlap with other external programmes happening bilaterally or multilaterally. Some lighthouse projects under the IORA will give it an identity. They can coincide with the Indian Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI). For instance, India, Indonesia and Singapore are working on certain pillars of the IPOI; this could extend to cover the IORA. Other members should be encouraged to look at the IPOI pillars and work on them so that their programmes can synergise. This will be on the same lines that the IPOI and the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) are collaborating. In the IORA, this can be more functional and economic and have a bigger socio-economic impact.