On February 17, 2022, YCAPS hosted Martin Caughi Inglott to speak at our Indo-Pacific Maritime Hour event “Getting to Know CRIMARIO: A EU Maritime Capacity-Building Initiative.” Martin, a retired Maltese senior naval officer, is Project Director of the European Union (EU) Critical Maritime Routes in the Indian Ocean II (CRIMARIO II) initiative, a project developed to support partner countries and organizations to secure sea lines of communication that are vital for international trade and prosperity. The webinar was moderated by John Bradford, Executive Director of YCAPS, and joined by over 50 participants, including current and former service members, as well as scholars in the field.
Martin began his presentation by providing an overview of CRIMARIO’s organizational objectives, outputs, and partner countries. He discussed in detail IORIS, an information-exchange platform for communication and coordination provided by CRIMARIO to partner governments and international organizations. During the follow-on Q&A session, Martin described similarities and differences between IORIS and other information-sharing platforms, provided examples of scenarios in which IORIS could be employed between countries or between national agencies, and noted several areas of anticipated expansion in CRIMARIO’s technical offerings and partner countries.