Designing for infrastructure resilience

This publication calls for a resilience-led approach to designing infrastructure projects that is fundamentally different from the existing standards-led design used in many initiatives.  This requires resilience and sustainability to set the context for
selection and design, and to be informed by the participation of those affected by the infrastructure, such as different groups and individuals; including the poor and vulnerable, women as well as men in the local community

The publication offers the following recommendations to enhance the resilience of infrastructure (pp. 17-21):

• Resilience-thinking should prioritise improving existing infrastructure (including infrastructure systems and links to community/livelihood resilience) first.
• For some risks, and certainly for climate change which has increasing future risks, resilience should be considered at a much earlier stage than design, when infrastructure investment decisions and strategic planning choices are made.
• There should be a shift from an approach that starts with pre-existing standard solutions to performance specifications aiming to maintain an acceptable level of service.
• Capacity and skills need to be developed to deliver a participatory, resilience-led approach.