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From ASEAN to IORA
How much do you know about the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA)? If you don’t know much, or anything, about IORA, don’t worry.
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President Joko (Courtesy of Presidential Office/Wahyu Putro A)
H
ow much do you know about the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA)? If you don’t know much, or anything, about IORA, don’t worry. Although this regional cooperation group was initiated 20 years ago, it is a loose association that has only recently rediscovered its reason to march quickly and form a stronger cooperation framework across countries on the Indian Ocean’s rim.
Indonesia is among the forces looking to strengthen its cooperation framework, signaling that IORA will be “the next” regional cooperation that Indonesia cares deeply about after Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN).
IORA groups 21 member states located on the Indian Ocean’s rim and aims to deepen business cooperation in the region. Thus economic cooperation, at least for now, is the main motive for the countries working in this framework of cooperation.
From the western to eastern tips of the Indian Ocean rim, the association comprises South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Somalia, Oman, Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.
The importance of IORA can be understood from several aspects. First, geographically the Indian Ocean is strategically located and is the third largest ocean in the world, with many countries sharing maritime borders and trade routes.
Since connectivity is the keyword in enhancing cooperation among nations in the 21st century, the lack of multilateral cooperation in the ocean is a gap that needs mending. India, Indonesia and Australia are among the IORA member states pushing in this direction.
Second, unlike ASEAN, where the dialog partners support an association with relatively established norms and “rules of the game,” IORA’s dialog partners are important players in pushing this association forward as an entity with established norms and rules of the game. There are seven dialog partners for IORA: the United States, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.
