Building a Resilient Critical National Infrastructure: Ghana’s Imperative in a Digitally Interconnected World

The concept of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) used to evoke images of bridges, dams, and power plants. Today, it encompasses far more — digital networks, telecom systems, payment platforms, data centres, health information systems, and the algorithms that silently power decision-making across sectors. In an era defined by digital dependency and interconnected risks, the resilience of a nation’s CNI is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity, tightly bound to sovereignty, economic continuity, and national security.

Ghana, like many rapidly digitising economies, stands at a crossroads. On one hand, it is investing ambitiously in digital public infrastructure, expanding access to broadband, digitising public services, and cultivating a thriving fintech scene. On the other, it faces rising exposure to global cyber threats, infrastructure vulnerabilities, and systemic shocks that could cripple vital services overnight. The question isn’t if Ghana needs to build resilient critical infrastructure — it’s whether it’s doing so with the urgency, coordination, and foresight required.

The Expanding Definition of ‘Critical’

Resilience planning in Ghana often revolves around the obvious: electricity grids, ports, water systems, transportation. These remain foundational. Yet, the scope of what counts as “critical” has changed drastically in recent years. Mobile money platforms process more transactions than banks. Health records are stored in cloud systems vulnerable to ransomware. Elections rely on digital voter registers. Even agriculture is increasingly dependent on digital marketplaces and mobile weather alerts.

The implications are stark. If MTN’s mobile money platform were to go offline for 48 hours due to a cyberattack, the economic disruption would ripple across informal traders, urban commuters, rural farmers, and tax agencies. If a state-owned data center were compromised, sensitive citizen records could be leaked or held for ransom, undermining trust in government services.

Understanding this expanded terrain is the first step toward resilience. Too often, planning and policy still cling to a narrow, industrial-era view of infrastructure. In a digitally enabled economy, what’s critical is not only what you can see, but also what you cannot afford to lose.

Where Ghana Is Getting It Right — And Where It Must Catch Up

Ghana has made commendable strides. The Cyber Security Authority, established to oversee national cyber resilience, is building frameworks to protect information infrastructure, particularly within government and regulated industries. The Data Protection Act, though passed over a decade ago, is gaining traction as enforcement and awareness improve. And Ghana’s National Cybersecurity Policy outlines a vision for securing digital systems in a collaborative, multi-stakeholder fashion.

But these are foundational moves — not end goals. Resilience is not achieved through policy papers alone. It requires coordinated implementation, stress testing, continuous updating, and most critically, an acceptance that failure will happen. The question is how well Ghana is positioned to detect, isolate, and recover when those failures occur.

Several areas stand out as needing deeper focus. The first is cross-sector interdependence. Infrastructures don’t fail in silos. A cyber breach in the energy sector can disrupt water treatment. An outage in telecoms can crash emergency response. Ghana’s approach to resilience must reflect this complexity, ensuring that contingency planning isn’t conducted in isolated agencies or boardrooms, but across interconnected systems.

Second, Ghana must localise resilience. It’s not enough to replicate global best practices if they don’t align with local usage patterns or resource constraints. A resilience strategy in Accra may differ markedly from one in Bolgatanga, where access to redundant systems, emergency logistics, and digital alternatives are uneven.

Third, there’s the issue of private-sector inclusion. Much of Ghana’s critical digital infrastructure — mobile networks, fintech platforms, cloud services — is privately owned. Yet the engagement between government and private operators often remains transactional, rather than strategic. Resilience cannot be legislated into existence; it must be built through shared responsibility and trusted partnerships.

Global Lessons with Domestic Relevance

Globally, resilient infrastructure is being redefined through the lens of digital continuity. Countries like Estonia have pioneered data embassies — offshore servers hosted in friendly nations to back up critical state data. Singapore mandates sectoral cyber exercises and penalises failure to implement recovery plans. Israel combines military-grade threat intelligence with commercial innovation to protect its national networks.

Ghana doesn’t need to copy these models wholesale. But it can extract core lessons: that resilience demands simulation, not just speculation; that it must be rehearsed, not just written; and that it should be measured not by how often systems stay online, but how quickly they bounce back when they go down.

Additionally, international partnerships must serve Ghana’s agenda, not override it. Too often, donor-driven digital infrastructure projects prioritise visibility over viability. Resilience means saying no to technologies that can’t be maintained locally, or that deepen dependence on foreign vendors without transfer of capacity. Technology sovereignty is a key ingredient of national resilience — and one that Ghana must embed into procurement, standards, and talent development.

Talent and Trust— The Human Infrastructure

No infrastructure is resilient without people. The best-designed system will falter if the operators are undertrained, the users are unaware, or the decision-makers are uninformed. Resilience begins with a well-prepared workforce, a digitally literate public, and a governance structure that is transparent about risk.

This is especially critical in the aftermath of an incident. If a mobile payment service is hacked, how does the government communicate with the public? If hospitals lose access to patient records, how are decisions made about care continuity? Resilience is not just technical — it’s social, institutional, and psychological.

Building this human infrastructure requires long-term investment. Not just in cybersecurity experts or system architects, but in regional responders, community educators, and emergency planners. Ghana must treat resilience education as a national priority — not a training module for elites, but a civic competence for everyone.

The Road Ahead— Institutionalising Agility

The threats to critical infrastructure are not static. As climate change, geopolitical conflict, and cybercrime evolve, so too must the resilience playbook. This calls for institutional agility — the ability to revise risk models, update protocols, and test assumptions in real-time.

Ghana should consider creating a National Resilience Review Body, empowered to audit critical sectors, run joint simulations, and recommend upgrades based on emerging threats. This body must have authority, not just advisory status, and should include representatives from across sectors — public, private, and civil society.

Most importantly, Ghana must embed resilience into its national development strategy. It’s not a technical add-on. It’s the foundation for every other ambition — from industrial growth to digital inclusion to democratic stability.

Conclusion

To build a truly resilient critical national infrastructure, Ghana must look inward with honesty and outward with discernment. The task is not to mimic global models, but to learn from them, adapt them, and build systems that can stand — and recover — in the face of disruption.

Resilience is not about never failing. It is about failing smart, recovering fast, and learning continuously. It is not a destination, but a posture — a culture of readiness, grounded in local realities and informed by global risk.

Ghana has the tools, the talent, and the opportunity. What’s needed now is sustained coordination, bold leadership, and a national commitment to protecting not just what is visible, but what is vital.

Author: Desmond Israel, Esq. Partner (Cyberlaw & Technology Practice) AGNOS Legal Company