The IOC/UNESCO is composed of its Member States (147 in 2014), an Assembly, an Executive Council and a Secretariat. The Secretariat is based in Paris, France. Additionally the IOC has a number of Subsidiary Bodies: three regional sub-commissions (IOCARIBE, IOCAFRICA, and WESTPAC), and programme and project offices in Apia (Samoa), Bangkok (Thailand), Cartagena (Colombia), Copenhagen (Denmark), Jakarta (Indonesia), Kingston (Jamaica), Nairobi (Kenya), Muscat (Oman), Perth (Australia), and Port-au-Prince (Haiti). The JCOMM in situ Observations Programme Support Centre, currently hosted in Toulouse (France), is in the process of moving to Brest (France). Additionally, IOC has a strong presence in Oostende (Belgium), where the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) and the Secretariat for the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) are based. Under IOC mandate, the IODE coordinates since 1961 the exchange of information and data between the IOC Member States and its national oceanographic data centers. As for OBIS, it was established by the Census of Marine Life program (www.coml.org), and developed between 2000 and 2010 as an evolving strategic alliance of people and organizations sharing a vision to make marine biogeographic data, from all over the world, freely available over the World Wide Web. Any organization, consortium, project or individual may contribute data to OBIS.