Led by ICSI on behalf of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the Global Infrastructure Resilience Survey (GIRS) gathered perspectives from infrastructure professionals around the world. The survey results provide insights into infrastructure resilience across regions, sectors, and institutional structures.
GIRS is the largest survey of infrastructure professionals on the topic of resilience, collecting more than 3,000 responses from professionals in over 100 countries. The research was further enriched by over 70 in-depth interviews and 5 focus group discussions conducted across 47 countries.
Key findings from the survey were published in the CDRI’s Global Infrastructure Resilience Report 2025 (GIR2025), Chapter 4, launched at COP30.
The Working Paper: A Global Survey presents a detailed analysis of the results, highlighting regional and income-level variations, sectoral challenges, and emerging good practices.
Download the paper below.
Key messages emerging from the GIRS findings:
- Strengthening policies, standards, and regulations as well as their enforcement emerges as the most crucial governance action
- Weaknesses in institutional and human capacity are central challenges
- There is systematic underinvestment in ‘invisible’ resilience measures, such as maintenance, retrofitting, and data systems
- Risk assessments are often applied inconsistently or poorly applied
- There seems to be an ‘implementation ceiling’ across key approaches for infrastructure resilience
- Gaps in professional capacity block the scaling of solutions
- Bridging capacity gaps through professional development and education reform is essential to implement resilient infrastructure
