2nd International Workshop on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (IWDRI 2019)

In January 2018, the Government of India, in collaboration with UNISDR, hosted the first International Workshop on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (IWDRI2018). It brought together 21 countries and allied stakeholders to explore potential ideas for building the resilience of key infrastructure sectors (energy, transport, telecommunications, and water). This included ‘system-of-systems thinking’, creation of a global infrastructure inventory, a regional manual of practice and discussions on harmonization of policy provisions.  The following four thematic verticals were discussed:

1. Development of risk assessment methodologies, risk metrics and indicators of sustainability for different infrastructure classes;
2. Issues of standards, design and regulation for infrastructure development, operations and maintenance;
3. Financing for disaster resilient infrastructure including risk transfer mechanisms; and
4. Reconstruction and recovery planning of key infrastructure sectors after disasters.

To further build substantive research in conjunction with potential partners, the Government of India will host the Second International Workshop on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (IWDRI) in March 2019 in New Delhi.

As a crucial milestone towards the establishment of the CDRI, the IWDRI 2019 will explore ways of advancing and implementing some of the ideas generated at the IWDRI 2018. More specifically it will look at the contours of such an inter-country knowledge partnership to be an effective instrument of building disaster resilience of infrastructure. It will look at concrete action plans for capacity development of partner countries to upgrade their infrastructure assets, data standardization to facilitate knowledge exchange, among others.

The specific objectives of IWDRI 2019 are to:

1. Identify good practices of disaster risk management in key infrastructure sectors (Transport, Energy, Telecom and Water);
2. Identify specific areas and pathways for collaborative research on DRI;
3. Discuss and co-create the broad contours of the CDRI as well as a notional rollout plan for the next three years; and
4. Build a forum for members to work on areas of common interest and make specific commitments.

The workshop will bring together representatives from partner countries representing their disaster risk management agencies, key infrastructure sectors, multilateral development banks, UN agencies, academia and research institutions, the private sector and policy think tanks.