Critical Infrastructures Protection Conference

In April 2007 De Ruijter Strategy was asked to moderate an international scenario workshop on Critical Infrastructures Protection in The Hague. The scenario workshop was the ‘main course’  of a conference, organized by the Ministry of the Interior, with participants from governments all over the EU. In total 14 scenarios were developed; for 4 scenarios  policy options were generated to either prevent the scenarios from happening or to diminish their impact.
In the workshop participants were invited to design their own scenarios of large-scale critical infrastructure disruptions and potential responses.

The scenarios provided by the participants showed similarities. The surprises and unexpected interdependencies in most  scenarios did not result from the initial impact
of critical infrastructure disruptions (e.g. caused by extreme weather events or terrorist attacks), but from their so-called 2nd and 3rd order effects.

Especially with regard to the identification of international interdependencies, the
scenario building exercises showed how detailed knowledge of 2nd and
3rd order consequences often was present among representatives from
different  organizations and countries than those where the critical infrastructure
disruptions originated.
The key insight was that the creation of plausible and realistic scenarios
and preparations demanded a more intense cooperation between those
engaged at all levels in critical infrastructure protection.

At the end of the day, the following overall recommendation was presented:

“Security and continuity plans might look good on paper, until they
are tested in ‘reality’. Training costs money, but builds public-private
confidence and trust, and results in increased knowledge of
interdependencies and mutual crisis management capabilities. Especially
on an operational level, the frequent sharing of experiences and
cooperation between private companies, emergency services and policy
makers is sorely needed. Therefore: participate more actively in (inter)national scenario building and training exercises with emergency services.”

For more information visit the CIP site by clicking here.