FEATURE: FUTURE READY AFRICA
Boosting resilience of critical infrastructure
How should African nations prepare their critical infrastructure to ensure full resilience. And is there something like full resilience when on one hand infrastructure systems are highly interdependent and interconnected, while on the other hand external threats and volatility are growing. Benedicte Hennebo at WBD and Marco Fornier at The Academy for Sales Excellence, share their insights.
On March 21st, a substation fire in Hayes, North of Heathrow led to the power outage of one of the busiest airports in the world ricocheting across many international hubs. It also prompted questions about Britain’ s infrastructure and the lack of backup systems that could have kept the airport operational despite the interruption of power from the grid.
But beyond this incident, how should countries prepare their critical infrastructure to ensure full resilience? And is there something like full resilience when on one hand infrastructure systems are more highly interdependent and connected, creating a potential domino effect across individual failures and on the other hand hazards and threats are growing?
Let us first start with defining what is critical infrastructure. According to CISA, America’ s cyber defence agency, there are 16 critical infrastructure sectors that are part of a complex, interconnected ecosystem. Any threat to these sectors could have potentially debilitating national security, economic, and public health or safety consequences.
Those sectors with virtual and physical assets that apply at local, national or international levels range from communications to defence, utilities, finance, transport, healthcare, etc and are critical to keep countries up and running since damage on one would have ripple effects on other aspects of people, government and businesses.
Whilst it is understood that nothing can be secured a hundred percent, there are several steps and best practices that governments across the globe should consider in terms of preparedness, response and continuous improvement.
Preparedness
Preparedness means having a good understanding of the risks at hand, ensure a resilient infrastructure and trained personnel whilst planning ahead potential scenarios and how they would play.
42 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www. intelligentcio. com