The Indian Ocean Rim – Of Swimming Pools and Roads
If the Atlantic Ocean is The Pond, then the Indian Ocean is a public swimming pool. Like all good public swimming pools, you have independent groups of family and children minding their own business. Only when there are actions that affect these group, such as lanes been closed off for swimming training is this arrangement disrupted. Such actions can realise cooperation between groups to ensure minimum disruption and maximum enjoyment for users, if the little groups know their own minds.
In the Indian Ocean swimming pool, nations ringing the rim of this sea realised its importance to trade (e.g. it carries a third of the world’s bulk cargo traffic and two thirds of the world’s oil shipments), the inter-related nature of its fisheries and oceanic ecosystems that rudely ignore national jurisdiction, and the latent economic potential, particularly in relation to energy both renewal and non-renewable. To this end the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) was founded in 1997 representing 21 states.
An overview of what IORA is and what it does can be found here: https://www.iora.int/en/about/about-iora, and a more critical Australian perspective with a South African flavour can be found here: https://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/can-south-africa-achieve-greater-maritime-security-as-chair-of-the-indian-ocean-rim-association/
What was surprising from reading this material is that South Africa is currently the chair of IORA for the 2017 -2019 period. This fact has not been well communicated. I stumbled over a link to a sparsely populated South African IORA website - https://www.iora-sa.org/publication/newsletter/SANCOR%20Newsletter_IORA-SA.pdf/view, and through a good military orientated article in the Daily Maverick by researchers from the Institute of Security Studies - https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-17-africas-chance-to-boost-maritime-security-in-the-indian-ocean/.
Yet there isn’t a South African strategic approach to the Indian Ocean beyond that of IORA. Recent South African maritime policy has been restricted to the continental shelf and has not, as far as I can determine, considered the impacts of oceanic trade and development in the swimming pool.
What would be useful in a strategic review of South Africa’s relation to the Indian Ocean would be a terrestrial analysis of an urban and settlement pattern that is primed and orientated for resource extraction and export, be it Rail, road or air (specifically the Johannesburg to the Dubai International Air Hub route). Discussions on beneficiation and the nature of export processing zones and how these relate to the local economy and job creation need to be considered in detailed and the discussion needs to go beyond these common discussion points to a more holistic discussion as to how South African settlement can make the most of the Ocean. The Indian Ocean Discussion needs to find its way into the National Spatial Development Framework, and into discussions with SADC and other east coast nations who are also orientated for extraction.
South Africa needs to have this broader Indian Ocean Strategy in place as soon as possible as relationships are changing rapidly in the Indian Ocean. China is ramping up existing investment in the Region through the Belt and Road initiative whereby the swimming pool becomes a ‘road’ and is tarred over. Add to this the fallout of the trade war between China and the United States and opportunities and concerns within the Indian Ocean rim are probably going to morph rapidly. In such a context a collaborative approach between nation states around the rim to best use the swimming pool resource is critical, especially when it comes to managing future conflict about the resource.
Peter Magni 2018 African Urban Footpad