CDRI launches Infrastructure Resilience Academic eXchange, to bridge talent gap for building disaster-resilient infrastructure

To address critical gaps in the capacities of academicians, practitioners, and policymakers in the area of disaster-resilient infrastructure (DRI), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), with support of its member countries including the US, has launched Infrastructure Resilience Academic eXchange (IRAX). CDRI, which seeks to promote disaster and climate resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems, was launched in 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Climate Action Summit in New York. It has 39 members, including 31 national governments and six multilateral organisations such as UN agencies, multilateral development banks, and financing mechanisms.

As per the report by Asian Development Bank, average daily losses due to extreme disasters are estimated at $134 million between 2008 and 2017, raising a pressing need to build disaster-resilient infrastructure. To bridge this gap through IRAX, the Coalition members and partners will exchange and build knowledge resources for academic education and training for building the capacity of current and future infrastructure professionals to take up disaster and climate infrastructure development. The purpose of IRAX will be to facilitate higher education students and professionals across the world to access a supportive learning ecosystem to champion disaster and climate resilience of infrastructure in their home country, regionally and globally.

Amit Prothi, Director General, CDRI, told Business Today, “We need to be able to train the people to understand what is resilience, what is resilient infrastructure. Now we are starting to look at the demand. We're starting to see if we need to train senior bureaucrats, we need to have modules that are one week of training. If we need to train an engineer who's already studied hydrology and water, maybe that engineer needs a one-month course. If there's somebody who actually wants to specialise in this, then maybe it's a one-year programme. So, we are starting to build that. And we're starting to articulate that so the next few months we will have a clear strategy.”

Under IRAX, CDRI has also teamed up with the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA) and signed a ‘Statement of Intent’ for undertaking collaborative efforts for a 3-year period on action-oriented research, policy advocacy and in-country knowledge-building programmes for DRI.