International Ombudsman Institute

The International Ombudsman Institute (IOI), established in 1978, is the only global organisation for the cooperation of more than 200 independent Ombudsman institutions operating on a local, regional and national level from more than 100 countries worldwide. The IOI's current President Nashieli Ramírez Hernández (President of the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City) is scheduled to hold office for four years from 2024 to 2028. Hernández was appointed after the immediate former President Chris Field, also then the Ombudsman of Western Australia, stepped down in March 2024 only part-way through his term amidst an investigation into his own conduct as WA's Ombudsman. (Field later also resigned from that position after Western Australia's Corruption and Crime Commission found that he had engaged in serious misconduct.) Werner Amon, Chair of the Austrian Ombudsman Board, is the IOI's Secretary General since July 2019.

The role of Ombudsman institutions is to protect the people against the violation of rights, abuse of powers, unfair decisions and maladministration. In this sense, Ombudsman institutions are national human rights institutions. They play an increasingly important role in improving public administration while making the government's actions more open and its administration more accountable to the public.

In its effort to focus on good governance and capacity building, the IOI supports its members in a threefold way: training, research and regional subsidies for projects. The IOI is organised in six regional chapters (Africa, Asia, Australasia & Pacific, Europe, the Caribbean & Latin America and North America) and has three working languages (English, French and Spanish).

The General Secretariat is located in Vienna (Austria) and is run by the Austrian Ombudsman Board (Volksanwaltschaft) since 2009.