Good morning and welcome to the inaugural Kolkata Dialogue on Island State Resilience and Security.
Welcome to all the experts from Australia and India in this lovely city, Kolkata.
It is an honour for us to be partnering with the Observer Research Foundation for this significant dialogue. A special thank you to Dr Nilanjan Ghosh and the ORF team for their support and partnering with us.
I would like to express my gratitude to the Australian Department of Defence for their support in making this event possible.
I would like to acknowledge His Excellency Philip Green OAM, the Australian High Commissioner to India and Lieutenant General Vinod Khandare, the Principal Advisor at the Ministry of Defence, India for joining us here today and agreeing to deliver the keynote address.
I would like to welcome all other invitee guests from Australia and India for taking the time out to be part of this discussion.
The reason why we have come to Kolkata is because Kolkata is regarded as the gateway to the north-east Indian Ocean and of course, the Bay of Bengal.
And it is in the Indian Ocean region and also the Pacific Ocean region that the Island States are vulnerable to a host of challenges including climate change, resource management and geopolitical competition, which create threats and generate insecurity.
As a historic power in the Indian Ocean, India has looked to extend its relationship with Island states and has branched out to strengthen its engagement in the Pacific Ocean.
Similarly, Australia has had a long association of building support in the Pacific Ocean, but through its Defence Strategic Review 2023 has highlighted the importance of expanding the Defence Cooperation Program to the Indian Ocean.
There is no doubt that both Australia and India have played important roles as regional powers in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and share common interests in working with Island States to build resilience and assist in their economic development.
The main goal of this dialogue is to foster collaboration between Australia and India in enhancing the resilience and security of Indo-Pacific Island States.
By bringing together experts and officials from both countries, this dialogue aims to facilitate discussions on strategies for working together to strengthen Indo-Pacific Island States against a range of threats and risks, including climate change, damaging resource extraction, economic coercion, and disinformation.
In the first session we want to explore the rationale for our two countries to cooperate in their efforts to build resilience among Indo-Pacific Island states and also try to understand the experiences of both our countries individually trying to work with island nations to promote development.
Through our session on Building resilience to climate change we hope to explore how Australia and India can cooperate in their efforts to build climate resilience among Indo-Pacific Island states.
There is a clear understanding in the world today that we need to better manage our natural resources and through our third session we would like to explore how Australia and India can work together in strengthening the ability of island states to better manage their natural resources? And also understand and explore the best ways to protect critical maritime infrastructures?
One of the biggest concerns for democracies today is flighting disinformation and building resilience to economic coercion. And therefore, it is important that we understand how we can support Pacific and Indian Ocean Island states vulnerable to disinformation and economic coercion and balance multilateral engagement in this space?
To sum it up it’s crucial we work together and with island states to foster greater cooperation for their development. We need to ask ourselves how can we enhance policymaking and its effective implementation to ensure that.