History of IORA
IORA (Indian Ocean Rim Association), previously known as IOR-ARC (Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation) is a regional cooperation organisation that was declared or inaugurated in San Mauritius in March 1997. In accordance with its founding charter, IORA has several main objectives, namely to develop mutually beneficial cooperation through a consensus approach based on the principles of equality, territorial integrity, non-intervention, political independence, and peaceful coexistence and mutual benefit.
IORA is arguably the only organisation comprising countries in the sub-regions of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, the Southwest Pacific, and the East Coast of Africa. This can be seen from the 21 member countries that directly border the Indian Ocean such as Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, India, Comoros, Indonesia, Iran, Madagascar, Malaysia, Kenya, Oman, Mauritius, Seychelles, Mozambique, Singapore, Somalia, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, IORA also has seven dialogue partners, namely China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Egypt, Japan and Germany.
The name change from "IOR-ARC" to IORA was formalised at the 13th ministerial meeting in Perth, Australia on 1 November 2013. The decision was considered an effort to increase public awareness of the existence of the IORA forum. The establishment of the Indian Ocean regional cooperation forum was originally born from a joint idea of South Africa, Australia and India. At the beginning of the 1990s, South Africa had just been released from political shackles.
On 29-31 March 1995, a meeting took place in San Mauritius attended by government representatives, business people and academics from South Africa, Australia, India. Kenya, Mauritius, Oman and Singapore to discuss the development of ideas for co-operation among the countries of the Indian Ocean Region. In the follow-up meeting that took place in mid-August 1995, the Core Member States (M-7) successfully formulated a charter for the establishment of a regional cooperation mechanism called the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) which was later called the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). Apart from the M-7 countries, the meeting was also attended by representatives from several countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Mozambique (M-14).Â
Then, at the first Ministerial meeting in Mauritius on 6-7 March 1997, the M-7 countries successfully inaugurated the IOR-ARC charter which is the foundation of IORA as it is today. In its development, IORA continues to seek to expand and increase the intensity of cooperation among member states and utilise the role of Dialogue Partners.
The next ministerial meeting was held in Sana'a in August 2010 which resulted in several important achievements summarised in the Sana'a Communique. The Communique essentially agreed on how to establish the Maritime Transport Council (MTC). Amendments to the IORA charter as well as offering a number of flagship projects to IORA subsidiary institutions, Maritime Transport Council/MTC (maritime transport), Fisheries Support Unit/FSU (fisheries), Regional Centre for Science and Technology/RCSTT (science and technology), and University Mobility for Indian Ocean-Region/UMIOR (education).
At the 11th ministerial meeting in Bengaluru in November 2011, IORA identified six priority areas for cooperation, which include:
1. Maritime safety and security
2. Trade and investment facilitation
3. Fisheries management
4. Disaster risk management
