As it completes five years, it’s time to take the IPOI to the next level

The Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) was launched by India in November 2019 at the ASEAN-led East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bangkok. Its objective was to promote cooperation for a free and open Indo-Pacific and the rules-based regional order, which will contribute towards strengthening safety, stability and development in the maritime domain. After the announcement of the Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), the IPOI became a key policy articulation that signalled India’s new emphasis and prioritisation for enhanced engagement and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. As a non-treaty-based voluntary arrangement, it aims to achieve greater cohesion and integration through common understanding and actions related to shared interests. It does not envisage a new institutional framework and leans heavily on the EAS mechanism, which includes ASEAN member states and its eight dialogue partners.

The building blocks and their evolution 

The IPOI outlined seven pillars, and it was indicated that one or two countries could take the lead for a pillar with others joining in voluntarily. India reached out to like-minded partners, and the list of participants expanded gradually with lead countries as indicated below:

• Maritime Security —The United Kingdom (UK) and India
• Maritime Ecology — Australia and Thailand
• Maritime Resources — France and Indonesia
• Capacity Building and Resource Sharing — Germany
• Disaster Risk Reduction and Management — India and Bangladesh
• Science, Technology and Academic Cooperation — Italy and Singapore
• Trade, Connectivity and Maritime Transport — Japan and the United States (US).

Additionally, Greece joined the IPOI recently and is expected to indicate the pillar it plans to co-lead. It has been reported that South Korea is also considering participation in IPOI.

In the last five years, several countries/groupings promulgated their respective Indo-Pacific strategy, vision or outlook. As a broad template, the IPOI found resonance and alignment with many features of these documents. In turn, this helped in developing new maritime partnerships at bilateral, trilateral and plurilateral levels, and strengthening those already in place. The Australia-India Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative Partnership (AIIPOIP) was launched to drive specific programmes for bilateral maritime cooperation with a special focus on maritime ecology, wherein Australia is the co-lead. Significant convergences between the ASEAN Outlook for the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and the IPOI have been specifically highlighted by many analysts and policymakers, providing pointers for new avenues for cooperation. The IPOI also resonated well with the broad agenda of the Quad, a few pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), and specific maritime initiatives launched by other organisations in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. In 2021, China acknowledged the IPOI but did not spell out its position regarding the same.

The Australia-India Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative Partnership (AIIPOIP) was launched to drive specific programmes for bilateral maritime cooperation with a special focus on maritime ecology, wherein Australia is the co-lead.

The IPOI and its pillars have been discussed in a series of EAS conferences on maritime security cooperation, with the sixth conference held in Mumbai in July 2024. A conference on ‘Integrated Management and Security Across the Indo-Pacific: A Framework to Unify the Seven IPOI Pillars’ was held in October 2022 and deliberated upon the six specific pillars of IPOI with Capacity Building interwoven through each of them. It also looked at opportunities and challenges under each pillar and the seven pillars collectively towards promoting regional integration. The theme for the fourth edition of the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue held in India in November 2022 also focused on ‘Operationalising the IPOI.’

While progress under the IPOI pillars has been varied, it has been a useful umbrella concept for the promotion of maritime cooperation. However, the absence of a suitably articulated direction and agenda for multistakeholder and multilateral cooperation under each pillar has been a limiting factor.

The continued relevance of IPOI 

Since the launch of the IPOI, the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific region has undergone a major transition on account of geopolitical realignments, a new form and level of competition and contestation, wars and conflicts, a major pandemic, technology and capability developments, and economic challenges. Recent months have also witnessed a resurgence in maritime incidents, piracy, attacks on commercial shipping, armed robbery and smuggling. The oceans are critical to the climate agenda as they absorb 92 percent of solar energy and 28 percent of carbon dioxide. There has been an increase in climate-induced disasters, rise in sea surface temperature, ocean acidification and Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The oceans are critical to the climate agenda as they absorb 92 percent of solar energy and 28 percent of carbon dioxide.

New initiatives and rapid upscaling of maritime connectivity and transportation (under different frameworks and agreements) in the region are underway, with new collaborative maritime projects and corridors. The Government of India is proactively following up on its Maritime India Vision 2030 and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047. These include maritime trade, connectivity and transportation as a major thrust area, which is also a key pillar of the IPOI. Consequently, the seven pillars of IPOI not only remain relevant but become more important going forward. However, the agenda for each pillar would need to be adapted to the new environment.

With progress made on participation and pillar-wise leadership, the IPOI should now move to become a more meaningful framework for practical cooperation. 

Next Steps 

• Vision and broad agenda: Discussions, dialogue, conferences and workshops on IPOI have been held with multistakeholder participation across the region. Based on these, a collective vision statement on the initiative should be adopted. For each pillar, a brief plan and agenda for the next five years should be outlined by leaders of each pillar after due consultation.

• Pillar-specific dialogues: Lead countries should undertake to steer periodic dialogues related to each pillar. These can be in coordination with the EAS, East Asia Maritime Forum (EAMF), Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), and other regional frameworks dealing specifically with each of the pillars. Where desirable, such dialogues can cover more than one pillar. The broad purpose should be to take the agreed agenda forward.

• Participation of East Africa, GCC countries and small island states: Partly due to its genesis under India’s Act East policy and the linkage with the EAS mechanism, East African and GCC countries, and small island states are not duly represented in the framework. However, in the coming years, their participation and leadership should be encouraged, which would make IPOI a truly regional construct.

• Periodic dissemination: An annual summary for each pillar, by the leading countries can contribute significantly to promoting a common understanding of the direction being taken. Such dissemination would also show the usefulness of regional maritime cooperation in its broadest sense, which in turn would encourage other countries from or outside the region to participate.

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Girish Luthra is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation

• International Affairs
• India
• Neighbourhood
• The Pacific, East and Southeast Asia
• indo pacific oceans initiative
• ipoi initiative
• ipoi initiative objectives
• ipoi members
• seven IPOI pillars

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