ASEAN, Co-Hosted by India, Urges Concrete Action on Maritime Protection Under AOIP Framework
SDG 14: Life Below Water | SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Ministry of External Affairs | Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways
The ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) Seminar Series on Maritime Cooperation: Marine Protection and Preservation was held in Jakarta on December 8, 2025. Co-hosted by key partners India, Singapore, Australia, and Japan, the event brought together East Asia Summit (EAS) participating countries to discuss shared challenges in the vital Indo-Pacific maritime domain. The ASEAN Secretary-General, Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, underscored that commitment to marine protection reflects a collective effort to ensure healthy oceans, secure livelihoods, and long-term prosperity for a region where millions depend on the sea for food and income.
The Secretary-General stressed that ASEAN’s maritime resources, including 28% of the world’s most extensive coral reefs, face intensifying pressures. These threats include climate change, severe pollution, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable practices such as Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The consensus calls for urgent action through stronger regional cooperation, coordinated policy mechanisms, and tangible steps to protect and restore the oceans to strengthen climate resilience and enhance regional marine governance.
The AOIP is ASEAN’s strategic framework, adopted by leaders in 2019, designed to guide the region’s engagement by promoting an open, inclusive, and rules-based regional order anchored by ASEAN Centrality. The AOIP focuses on cooperation across four key areas: maritime, connectivity, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and economic cooperation, providing a non-militaristic, development-oriented approach to the Indo-Pacific construct.
Policy Relevance
India’s prominent role as a co-host of this seminar demonstrates the operational convergence between the AOIP and India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), which shares principles of rules-based order and sustainable resource management. This multilateral platform is crucial for India to advance maritime security and cooperation against non-traditional threats, particularly combating IUU fishing and ensuring the sustainable management of marine resources in its immediate oceanic neighborhood.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: Beyond dialogue, what specific joint research or capacity-building projects will the Ministry of External Affairs launch under the AOIP framework to combat marine plastic debris and IUU fishing in ASEAN waters?
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ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) Seminar