Infrastructure resilience project begins in Santiago, Chile

In June 2023, central and southern Chile experienced the heaviest rainfall recorded in the last 30 years leading to heavy flooding and damages to infrastructure. Climate change is changing the frequency, intensity, exposure and magnitude of multiple hazards that have historically affected the country. With this in mind, Chile is demonstrating its commitment to resilient infrastructure by bringing together different infrastructure stakeholders to implement the “Strengthening the resilience of infrastructure through improved governance” project which is supported by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). 

SENAPRED as the main Chilean entity in disaster risk management is coordinating this project and hosted a meeting bringing together stakeholders to kick-off the project. The event was attended by representatives from several key ministries including Public Works, Energy, Transport and Telecommunications, Housing and Urban Planning, Social Development, International Relations, Education and Health. The meeting led to the establishment of a technical working group comprised of stakeholders and experts from the various ministries, sectors and infrastructure regulators and operators. This group will be instrumental in providing technical input throughout the whole project for improving infrastructure resilience. 

During the kick-off meeting, stakeholders highlighted the importance of this enhancing infrastructure resilience project, and the valuable opportunity to work together on an intersectoral approach for resilient infrastructure, while also praising the innovation and robustness of the CDRI/UNDRR Global Methodology for Infrastructure Resilience Reviews. 

María Ignacia Rojas, from the Advisory Commission for Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, emphasized "This is a central issue related to territorial planning... From the Ministry of Housing we face many regulatory and planning challenges ...We are working on a Guide to distinguish risk levels and conditions, which once prepared could be binding for certain projects or infrastructures."

Macarena Jiménez, Head of the Risk and Disaster Reduction Unit of the Undersecretary of Education Cabinet, expressed her praise for combining visions regarding this issue. She further added that the education sector shares the vocation for service that is so essential to contributing to infrastructure resilience and to the community.