The Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems (OES) was initiated by three countries in 2001. As of December 2014, 23 countries are members of the OES: Portugal, Denmark, United Kingdom, Japan, Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Mexico, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, Republic of Korea, South Africa, China, Nigeria, Monaco, Singapore and The Netherlands, ordered by sequence of joining the Agreement. Singapore joined the OES on 2 September 2014 and the signatory entity is the Nanyang Technological University. Communication has continued with other countries/institutions invited to join the OES: Brazil, Chile, India, France, Indonesia, Russia, Finland, Costa Rica and the European Commission. Some efforts have been made to attract other countries with activities or interest on ocean energy, such as Malaysia, Malta, Cuba, Philippines and Peru. |
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Figure 2: OES Membership Growth
National governments appoint a Contracting Party to represent the country in the Executive Committee (ExCo) (Table 1). The Contracting Party can be a government ministry or agency, a research institute or university, an industry association or even a private company. Governments also nominate alternates, who may represent the government at ExCo meetings, if the nominated representative is unavailable. Consequently there is a diversified representation of interests in the ExCo (Fig. 3). The ExCo considers this diversity to be a key strength of the organization and will strive to maintain this balance of representation.
Figure 3: Diversified representation of interests in the ExCo
Table 1: Contracting Parties (Status in December 2014)