FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
Building a resilient nation
Resilience is a nation’ s ability to survive calamities, seize market opportunities, prepare for change.
( Left to right) Jointly prepared by Dr Mahir Nayfeh, Senior Vice-President, Booz Allen Hamilton; Rosa Donno, Senior Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton; and Nicholas Bahr, Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Statistically, every day at least one disaster occurs and impacts lives or economic growth. Nations find themselves more vulnerable to threats, and are often unable to manage that increasingly complex level of risk. Due to the recognition of these shortcomings, national resilience has become a strategic imperative on the agenda of national governments around the globe.
Natural disasters, economic crises, acts of terrorism, and other such disruptions pose serious threats to national growth and stability. Damages from these disruptive events have been estimated to be $ 1.5 trillion over the last 10 years in OECD and BRIC countries. This is why national resilience has become an integral part of every nationís strategic agenda.
Resilience is a nation’ s ability to survive ongoing calamities, seize any existing market opportunities, and prepare against any catastrophic events or periods of change. Resilient nations rapidly adapt and respond to internal and external events and continue operations by stabilising a country’ s performance.
Some have claimed that complete resilience is a Utopian concept as no nation can be entirely risk-free. It is true that a nation which is highly resilient to certain risks may be vulnerable to others. Hence, a truly resilient nation is one where the government adopts a resilience framework, enabling risk analysis to be conducted on an ongoing basis and embedding resilience across the nation by cutting across sectors and aligning operational activities with strategic priorities.
The concept of the resilience framework is based on the development and integration of governance and functional capabilities across all the sectors that are considered vital to the nationís survival, security, and economy. To implement this framework, a government must agree upon a vision that is aligned with its national strategy and includes the participation of central government, local authorities, and private-sector stakeholders.
Following this, a government must develop a consistent and coordinated communications programme around its vision for resilience. It is important to understand risk interdependencies and which risks the nation is willing to tolerate. This is the first step towards
36 Issue 01 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS