The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi inaugurated the fourth edition of the International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (ICDRI) via video message. The session was also addressed by the Scott Morrison MP, Prime Minister of Australia, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana, Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan and Andry Nirina Rajoelina, President of Madagascar. The event is being held form 4th to 6th May 2022 on a hybrid format.
The International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (ICDRI) is CDRI’s flagship event bringing together policymakers, researchers and practitioners from across the world to strengthen the global discourse on disaster and climate resilient infrastructure.
In his address, Prime Minister Modi said: “We remain committed to meeting the needs of the poorest and the most vulnerable by building the next generation infrastructure to realize their aspirations”, he said. The Prime Minister said that infrastructure is about people and providing them high quality, dependable, and sustainable services in an equitable manner.”
As India is scaling-up the provision of fundamental services in India in the areas of education, health, drinking water, sanitation, electricity, transport and much more, said the Prime Minister, adding, “We are also tackling climate change in a very direct way. At COP-26 we have committed to attain ‘Net Zero’ by 2070, in parallel with our developmental efforts.”
The Prime Minister talked about the importance of infrastructure in unleashing the human potential and said that damage to infrastructure leads to lasting damage for generations. He mentioned the initiative on ‘Infrastructure for Resilient Island States’ that was launched at COP-26 and CDRI’s work on Resilient Airports studying 150 airports around the world. The ‘Global Assessment of Disaster Resilience of Infrastructure Systems’ that is being led by CDRI will help create global knowledge that would be immensely valuable.
