This Working Paper - Technologies: Harnessing the Full Potential, has been prepared as part of CDRI’s Second Global Infrastructure Resilience Report (GIR 2025) Working Paper Series. It examines how technologies can be leveraged to strengthen infrastructure resilience across the disaster cycle by enhancing the capacity to absorb shocks, respond effectively, and recover, while adopting a holistic perspective that considers infrastructure assets, systems, and users. The paper explores the opportunities that technology offers for resilient infrastructure, as well as the emerging and future trends likely to shape the resilient infrastructure landscape in the coming years, while also addressing the key challenges and limitations that must be overcome to enable the effective adoption of technology for fostering infrastructure resilience. In doing so, it recognises that resilience is not solely dependent on frontier innovation or advanced technologies and therefore also examines how low-cost and context-appropriate technologies may be more effective and sustainable in certain environments or for specific resilience objectives. By focusing on both simple and advanced technologies, the paper aims to equip stakeholders with the knowledge needed to make informed, context-sensitive decisions that support long-term success.

The paper ultimately supports the mandate of GIR 2025, to provide global leaders, policymakers, and practitioners with the evidence and practical tools required to translate analysis into action, ensuring that infrastructure systems are not only safeguarded from shocks but also contribute to sustainable development gains. In alignment with GIR 2025’s ambition to understand how to capture the “resilience dividend,” the paper outlines seven foundational elements that create an enabling environment for successful technology adoption and provides a practical checklist alongside a four-stage process to assess readiness and guide improvement across institutions, infrastructure providers, and operators. It concludes with forward-looking recommendations and strategic priorities for advancing technology enabled resilience in infrastructure planning and delivery.