Infrastructure for Resilient Island States Initiative

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Infrastructure for Resilient Island States’ Initiative- Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
GS Paper 3: Environment- Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation.

Recently, the Prime Minister of India launched the Initiative for the Resilient Island States (IRIS) for developing infrastructure of small island nations at the COP26 of UNFCCC at Glasgow.

About: The Infrastructure for Resilient Island State (IRIS) is an initiative under the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
- The Infrastructure for Resilient Island State (IRIS) is the first major initiative by India under the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
Mandate: The Infrastructure for Resilient Island State (IRIS) aims to create a disaster-resilient infrastructure that can minimize human and economic loss of the small island countries during various disasters.
Funding: Australia, India and the UK have committed initial funding of $10 million under the Infrastructure for Resilient Island State (IRIS). More countries like Japan are expected to join it.
Timely Information: ISRO will build a special data window for the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to provide them timely information about cyclones, coral-reef monitoring, coast-line monitoring, etc. through satellite.

About: Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a group of 38 UN Member States and 20 Non-UN Members/Associate Members of UN regional commissions.
Prone to Disasters: They are most vulnerable to climate change-induced calamities.
- Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are up against their common enemy that is climate change and resultant disasters.
- Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face unique social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities.
- Vulnerable small island states are in the frontline of loss and damage that is caused by global warming.
- UN Global Assessment Report (2017): SIDS countries account for two-thirds of the countries in the world that suffer the highest relative losses due to disasters.