Investigating ICT Infrastructure and Data Resilience in the Pacific
The Situation
Pacific education organisations often do not have sufficient infrastructure, systems and processes to ensure ICT system resilience or data security in the event of natural hazard events and other risks.
Understanding the key natural hazards and risk issues, the resident infrastructure and data systems and processes was considered by the Commonwealth of Learning to be key to assist education institutions in the Pacific in their current education initiatives, but also to assist the future participation in online, distance and flexible learning initiatives.
Our Approach
The Project was to identify and survey key ICT Infrastructure and Data Managers at various institutions across the Pacific, including in:
Fiji
Kiribati
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
Tonga, and
Tuvalu
The survey and follow up information gathering was to identify:
Threats to IT infrastructure and data
Critical IT Systems and Data
IT Infrastructure and Disaster Recovery plans and practices, and
Planned future enhancements to IT infrastructure and data resilience.
Findings
The Pacific nations surveyed were keenly aware of many of the issues facing their resilience and ability to recover from adverse events, and almost all had been affected from IT threats in the past three years.
Natural disasters ranked highly as a potential issue affecting IT Infrastructure, data, and general resilience, and was thought to potentially affect all components of IT Infrastructure for most nations. The recent (at the time in 2022) earthquake and associated tsunami in Tonga, approximately four months prior to this survey, had likely brought these issues to front of mind for many Pacific nations. However, electricity supply consistency, cybersecurity and hacking were also identified by various nations as key risks.
The Outcomes Achieved
The knowledge gained through this research will be used by the Commonwealth of Learning and partners to inform interventions and assistance. Such assistance may be in terms of direct grants of IT infrastructure or cabling, support to seek Cloud Back-up services, or assistance to develop a new Emergency Response Plan.