Background
From February to April 2021, UN DESA and UNCDF delivered a series of virtual workshops, or “Online Solutions Dialogues” (OSDs), to introduce key concepts on Infrastructure Asset Management (IAM) in a highly interactive and collaborative setting. More than 2,400 registered participants from local and central governments officials, as well as experts, practitioners, and other key stakeholders, attended the OSDs.
There were three thematic rounds of workshops:
- Introduction to infrastructure asset management – February 2021
- Capturing data for effective asset management information systems – March 2021
- Crisis-resilient asset management – March/April 2021
Within each round, there were 2-day workshop sessions in each of these regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.
Each workshop was adapted to the regional context, with lessons and activities developed based on consultations with experts from the region. There was also simultaneous interpretation in other languages, such as Bangla, Nepali, French, and Spanish.
By attending each round of workshops, participants were able to:
- Become familiar with the central tenets of IAM, such as portfolio, risk and life cycle management.
- Assess the challenges of undertaking IAM in their own city, as well as the long-term net benefits that include climate resilience and public health defense.
- Learn the four phases of the asset life cycle and how to make key strategic, tactical and operational considerations during each one.
- Get a hands-on introduction to applying the Asset Management Diagnostic Tool and Asset Management Action Plans (AMAPs) from those who created the instruments.
- Learn how to prioritize critical assets based on the ‘Six Whats’ and on the likelihood and consequences of risks, including from climate hazards and infectious diseases.
- Consider how to establish the building blocks of an asset management information system, including a basic hierarchy or classification system based on local priorities.
- Be introduced to various types of data to collect on assets (condition, performance, maintenance), and to specific methods of depreciation for gathering financial data and valuing assets over their life cycles.
- Evaluate climate hazards to their own community and develop ‘impact statements’ that account for the community’s unique levels of exposure and capacities to adapt.
- Use detailed impact statements to detect vulnerabilities and define some necessary interventions to mitigate or adapt to climate risks facing the community.
- Learn how to integrate climate and public health risk considerations into AMAPs and related strategies, policies and plans. In the case of public health, governments can develop Emergency Response AMAPs, or ER-AMAPs.