An International Workshop on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (IWDRI) will be inaugurated today in New Delhi. The two-day workshop is being organised by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), and in partnership with the Global Commission on Adaptation, United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.

The workshop aims to

i) identify good practices of disaster risk management in key infrastructure sectors,

ii) identify specific areas and pathways for collaborative research on DRI (Transport, Energy, Telecom and Water),

iii) discuss and co-create the broad contours of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) as well as a notional roll-out plan for the next three years, and

iv) build a forum for members to work on areas of common interest and make specific commitments.

It will bring together countries from different parts of the world, multilateral development banks, UN agencies, academia and research institutions, the private sector, academics and policy think tanks to discuss and collaborate on promoting policies and practices towards achieving disaster resilience of large infrastructure systems (transport, telecom, energy, water). This will also be a great opportunity to learn from the unique experiences of different countries.

Various international agreements have also reiterated the importance and long-term benefits of investing in resilient infrastructure. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), 2015-2030, which is the first major agreement of the post-2015 development agenda, identifies investing in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) for resilience and to build back better in reconstruction as priorities for action towards reducing disaster risk.

Similarly, Goal 9 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognizes disaster resilient infrastructure as a crucial driver of economic growth and development.

Besides reducing infrastructure losses, disaster resilient infrastructure will also help achieve targets pertaining to reduction in mortality, number of affected people and economic losses due to disasters.

The first International Workshop on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (IWDRI 2018) was held in January 2018. This workshop will further build upon some of the ideas generated at the IWDRI 2018 as a crucial milestone towards the establishment of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).

The CDRI is envisaged as a knowledge exchange and capacity development partnership. India announced the creation of a CDRI soon after the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, which was held in New Delhi in 2016.