7 July 2023

Building a resilient future: Costa Rica identifies next steps to strengthen critical infrastructure

Source(s): United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean

San Jose, Costa Rica, 31 May 2023. UNDRR Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean (ROAC) and the Costa Rican National Emergency Commission (CNE) held a workshop “Towards the Next Steps” as they reach the end of the Project "Strengthening the Level of Resilience in Critical Infrastructure in Costa Rica”.

Costa Rica used the Principles for Resilience Infrastructure as a framework to assess their critical infrastructure from a systemic perspective with the goal of implementing net resilience gains (an important commitment to ensure that any intervention to infrastructure systems has a positive impact on infrastructure resilience).

A systemic perspective towards critical infrastructure

The Principles provide a comprehensive framework of key actions and guidelines to enhance the resilience of critical services such as energy, transport, water, wastewater, waste, and digital communications. Net resilience gain recognizes that infrastructure sectors are interconnected and that any intervention in the infrastructure system should improve, or at least not reduce, the resilience of the infrastructure system as a whole. Identifying opportunities to improve the net resilience of an infrastructure system requires considering the dependencies between different infrastructure sectors and accounting for cascading risks between them.

Strengthening the Level of Resilience in Critical Infrastructure in Costa Rica

UNDRR and the Costa Rican National Emergency Commission (CNE) have been working together since December 2022 on “Strengthening the Level of Resilience in Critical Infrastructure in Costa Rica”. This project used a multisectoral approach to assess eight infrastructure sectors: Electric Energy, Hydrocarbons, Roads and Bridges, Railroads, Water and Sanitation, Health, Education, and National Postal Service.

Using UNDRR’s Principles for Resilient Infrastructure and Stress Test tool, the critical infrastructure system in Costa Rica was analyzed from a systemic perspective. This innovative approach provides a complementary view of infrastructure resilience focused on protecting the continuity of infrastructure services rather than protecting infrastructure assets.

Costa Rica stands out as the first country in Latin America to implement these principles and offers important lessons on implementation in the region.

Looking forward

The workshop “Towards the Next Steps” held by UNDRR in collaboration with the CNE shared preliminary results from the previous analysis and invited representatives from multiple infrastructure sectors to identify priority actions for increasing the resilience of infrastructure systems in Costa Rica. Through interactive activities, the Energy, Hydrocarbons, Road Infrastructure, Railways, Health, and Education sectors identified short, medium, and long-term actions to strengthen resilience in their sectors. As the Project “Strengthening the Level of Resilience in Critical Infrastructure in Costa Rica” reaches its final stage, the analysis of the current state of infrastructure resilience is being used to identify immediate interventions, as well as longer-term directions for strengthening resilience.

Government officials that participated in this project see improved capacities and coordination between sectors, as well as more knowledge on the risks of their activities as the key benefits of this project.