B asic and reliable infrastructure to access drinking water, sanitation, electricity and affordable transportation is pivotal not only to people’s lives but also essential to support basic livelihoods.

Disruption to access this infrastructure due to extreme weather events has a cascading impact. For example, during drought periods, countries relying on hydroelectricity power assets on a river have to deal with energy production issues and need to cater to the increased energy demand with heatwaves. Another example, the flooding of the railway lines, not only impacts the people using the transportation but also the businesses that depend on it. The knock-on effects of infrastructure failure have a lasting impact on lives and livelihoods. Investing in resilient infrastructure has a strong economic case, and more so in Africa, where poor infrastructure continues to hinder economic growth in most countries.

This session on resilient infrastructure focused on developing resilience in the transport and energy systems in Africa with a systems approach.