CDRI to unveil telecom resilience study at CoP 29

The India-led Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) will unveil its new study on building disaster resilient telecommunications infrastructure and a new set of funding recipients for small island countries (SIDs) at the next CoP climate conference.

In an interview with Mint, CDRI director general Amit Prothi said that the organization will take its work on telecom infrastructure global and will start projects in foreign nations this year.

“We're doing studies across several Indian states to understand where the risks are in the telecommunications space. So, is your equipment lying in a flood prone area? Is your tower designed for the new wind speeds that we might be experiencing? These are just basic things but there's a whole systemic approach to understand where risks might be in your infrastructure system,” Prothi told Mint.

“Resilient infrastructure is about making sure that the infrastructure continues to provide services when there are events like flood, earthquake or cyclone. We're doing studies across several Indian states to understand the challenges and bottlenecks in the telecommunications space,” Prothi informed. 

“Is your equipment lying in a flood prone area? Is your tower designed for the new wind speeds that we might be experiencing? Is your backup power having enough fuel? There's a whole systemic approach to understand where risks might be in your infrastructure system. So, we are trying to come up with those advisories in the telecommunications space.”

These studies are expected to be completed in the next three months, with plans to unveil them at the next Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC or 29th United Nations Climate Change conference (CoP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year.

CDRI also plans to launch the second call of the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS) next month in Antigua Barbuda to continue assisting small island developing states (SIDs) and incorporate it in its COP29 agenda.

IRIS, essentially a multi-year grant funding mechanism, promotes resilient, sustainable, and inclusive infrastructure development in small island countries. The IRIS ‘Call for Proposals’ has been designed to channel support in SIDS through projects based on key themes that emerged from extensive consultations and inputs from SIDS stakeholders. 

The key themes are risk informed policy and planning, implementation readiness, access to finance, and inclusion mainstreaming. CDRI launched the first call last year.

“We've already allocated roughly $8 million in the first call, which'll go again to countries in this, and the grant range will be between 150,000 and half a million. The support requests so far have been in the early warning space, building code space, coastal resilient infrastructure space. But the next call is responding to what the SIDs need, and the call is designed to support that will be open to all the member countries, all the SIDs and the Pacific,” Prothi said.

“In the upcoming COP, we will be involved. We intend to announce the recipient of the second call for proposals at COP. Receiving proposals, evaluating proposals, selecting proposals and announcing the selection at COP are already planned. These two things are already there on our COP agenda," Prothi added.

He further informed that some foreign countries have expressed interest in CDRI’s studies. On climate, the CDRI has also provided other countries probabilistic risk modelling services to allow them to assess risks from environmental shocks.

CDRI is also working with the government of Sikkim, in partnership with the World Health Organization, to understand the preparedness of health systems for natural disasters. He added that CDRI is interested in developing a framework that can be offered to other countries.

The CDRI was launched in 2019 during Prime Minister Modi’s remarks at the UN Climate Action Summit. Based in New Delhi and 60% of its funding coming from the Indian government, the organization has several global stakeholders, including national governments, multilateral development banks, the private sector and academic bodies, among others. 

It has 39 countries as members and hopes to add more members from Africa. Currently, it counts Madagascar, Mauritius, South Sudan and Ghana among its membership.

“For countries that are in the early stages of infrastructure development, the coalition provides access to good practices to develop appropriate standards as well as regulatory mechanisms to manage infrastructure development in a manner that fosters resilience. For countries at an advanced stage of infrastructure development, CDRI provides an opportunity to engage with the development of robust infrastructure systems that are interconnected globally,” the coalition explains on its website.