A global three-day conference being hosted by India in partnership with the US to deliberate on securing energy infrastructure worldwide and risk financing in building disaster-resilient infrastructure. The conference, beginning May 4, will be attended by senior ministers and officials from 36 countries and UN agencies, including multilateral organisations such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
Calling it a global transition phase amid changing climate, the agenda points of the discourse have been designed by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the organiser of the conference, to address what new energy or transport infrastructure is required in the future to withstand the disruptions caused by man-made or natural hazards. Both the developed and developing countries are currently facing high inflation and rising energy costs due to supply side disruptions of oil and gas coming from Russia. The Ukraine war has put pressure on all economies irrespective of their size, some on the brink of a default.
“How will cascading risks be managed given deeper integration across infrastructure systems; how can people be made change agents in building resilient infrastructure and what role will human-centred design play in building forward and building back better?” the CDRI said in a paper released ahead of the conference.
The CDRI emphasised on embedding disaster risk-financing in all infrastructure investments in addition to leveraging new technologies for building resilience.
Mami Mizutori, head of the UN office for disaster risk reduction (UNDRR), is among international dignitaries besides officials from Germany, Japan, Australia, the UK, Italy, Egypt, France and the EU participating in the meet being held in person after a gap of two years.
Several Cabinet ministers of the Modi government, including Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari and PM’s Principal Secretary P K Mishra, will address the global conference.
The India-headquartered CDRI was launched by PM Narendra Modi at the UN climate summit in 2019. The institution has been working with the purpose of ‘promoting risk-informed fiscal planning, investments in disaster resilient infrastructure (DRI) and strengthening infrastructure governance’ among member nations.
The 2022 international conference on DRI is the fourth in the series since 2018. But the in-person gathering is being held after two years of the pandemic. It will have sessions on policy interventions required to address risk governance in the current geopolitical scenario.
