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INSPIREALLIANCE

BackgroundThe 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a communicable respiratory disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus that causes illness in humans. COVID-19 is spreading across the world at alarming speed. As of 14 May 2020, total COVID-19 cases in 33 Asia and the Pacific Countries are 441,888 with reported 18,204 deaths, recovered 258,164, leaving active case on that date of 165,520.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction - SFDRR (2015-2030) mentioned biological hazards, including pandemic, as major risks and the World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 a pandemic. This is an unprecedented crisis where the impacts go well beyond the health sector. Several countries declared this pandemic as national disaster and recognized that the Disaster Risk Reduction processes would be a way to respond to this crisis.

UNESCO has a coordinating structure for promoting the multi sectoral approach on disaster risk reduction (DRR). Since 2018 UNESCO Office Jakarta, as the Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific has been working on empowering and strengthening young science, engineering, technology, and innovation (SETI) professionals in Asia and the Pacific to support disaster risk reduction and build resilience. UNESCO facilitated and advocated youth and young professionals in numbers of Asia country to establish a national platform called U-INSPIRE (Youth and Young Professionals on Innovation, Science, and Technology Platform for Disaster and Climate Change Resiliency).

The U-INSPIRE started in Indonesia as a National Platform to discuss, network, collaborate, coordinate and mobilize themselves to use their SETI knowhow and experience to work on disaster risk reduction and building resiliency to supports achieving the target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR).

No Asia and the Pacific Country

Total Cases

Total Deaths

Total Recovered

Total Active Case

441,888 18,204 258,164 165,520 1 Afghanistan 5,226 132 648 4,446 2 Australia 6,980 98 6,271 611 3 Bangladesh 17,822 269 3,361 14,192 4 Bhutan 11 - 5 6 5 Brunei 141 1 134 6 6 Cambodia 122 - 121 1 7 China 82,929 4,633 78,195 101 8 Fiji 18 - 14 4 9 French Polynesia 60 - 58 2

10 India 78,055 2,551 26,400 49,104 11 Indonesia 15,438 1,028 3,287 11,123 12 Iran 112,725 6,783 89,428 16,514 13 Japan 16,049 678 8,920 6,451 14 Kazakhstan 5,417 32 2,408 2,977 15 Kyrgyzstan 1,044 12 726 306 16 Laos 19 - 14 5 17 Malaysia 6,779 111 5,281 1,387 18 Maldives 955 4 40 911 19 Mongolia 42 - 15 27 20 Myanmar 181 6 79 96 21 Nepal 243 - 35 208 22 New Caledonia 18 - 18 - 23 New Zealand 1,497 21 1,402 74 24 Pakistan 35,298 716 8,899 25,683 25 Papua New Guinea 8 - 8 - 26 Philippines 11,618 772 2,251 8,595 27 Singapore 25,346 21 4,809 20,516 28 South Korea 10,991 260 9,762 969 29 Sri Lanka 915 9 382 524 30 Thailand 3,017 56 2,844 117 31 Timor-Leste 24 - 21 3 32 Uzbekistan 2,612 11 2,076 525 33 Vietnam 288 - 252 36

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/Date: 14 May 2020

At present, there are twelve U-INSPIREs established in Asia (Afghanistan, Central Asia (covering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), Huaxia (China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Philippines). In 2019 UNESCO Regional Sciences Bureau for Asia and the Pacific assembled eight U-INSPIREs in Jakarta where they formed U-INSPIRE Alliance as the Jakarta Declaration. This alliance is to position themselves as regional platform to collaborate, cooperate, and learn from each other as well as address transboundary issues such as COVID-19.

This Youth and Young Professionals Platforms have been contributing and implementing activities in respond to the COVID-19 crisis. The Youth and Young Professionals are working at the national level through their national U-INSPIRE chapters as well as work collaboratively between the national chapters through the U-INSPIRE Alliance.

Report on UNESCO and U-INSPIRE Alliance WebinarAsia and the Pacific Youth and Young Professionals engagement on COVID-19

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Youth and Young Professionals in Asia and the Pacific engangement to COVID-19

The aims of this WebinarMany youth and young professional engage, contribute and implement activities in respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Youth and young professional members of the U-INSPIREs, using their SETI capacity, also have implement various activities at the national level through their U- INSPIRE chapters as well as work collaboratively between countries through the U-INSPIRE Alliance. This webinar shared and discussed how youth and young professional use their science, engineering, technology and innovation background to engaggee and contributed in fighting against COVID-19.

Time and AgendaDate : Friday, 15 May 2020Time : 02:00 – 04:30 PM (GMT+7)Agenda :

Opening Statement: (Moderated by: Mr. Ardito M Kodijat)• Mr. Pradip Katiwadha, Chair of U-INSPIRE Alliance • Prof. Shahbaz Khan, Director and Representatives UNESCO Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, UNE-

SCO Jakarta

Key Remarks:• Mme Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, Assistant Director General of Natural Sciences, UNESCO Paris,

Presentations:• Dr. Nuraini Rahma Hanifa (U-INSPIRE Alliance –Indonesia): Introduction of U-INSPIRE Alliance• Mr. Alberto Fancioli (Africa): Insights from the AYAB - UNESCO webinar on Youth Engagement on COVID-19 for

‘TheAfricaWeWant

Presentation of Youth engagement in COVID-19: (Moderated by: Mr. Sufyan Aslam)U-INSPIRE Alliance activities on COVID-19• Dr Ranit Chatterjee (U-INSPIRE Alliance –India): COVID 19 Regional Monitoring

U-INSPIRE National Chapters and Other Countries:• Mr. Serikzhan Atanov (U-INSPIRE Central Asia/Dacryn): Covid-19 myth busters campaign• Mr. Moeid Mujeeb Jilani (U-INSPIRE Pakistan): Negating misinformation and promoting scientific research• Mr. Tanmay Uttam Gound (U-INSPIRE India): Awareness Videos and Blog• Ms. Ernestina Barros de Andrade (Timor-Leste): Sharing is Caring, Risk Communication Video in Timor-Leste• Ms. Risye Dwiyani (U-INSPIRE Indonesia): Risk and Science Communication for COVID-19• Ms. Sukhreet Bajwa (U-INSPIRE India): COVID 19 Risk Assessment Tool• Dr. Vivien How & Mr. Khairuddin bin Othman (U-INSPIRE Malaysia): Leveraging local resources and capacity in

solidarity for COVID-19 front liner• Mr. Said Fariz Hibban (U-INSPIRE Indonesia): The New Normal: Crowdsourcing Reporting Unspoken Conditions

Related with COVID-19 by Citizen using Chatting Platform with API and Geolocated Based.• Mr. Suraj Gautam (U-INSPIRE Nepal): Covid-19 information Portal and Mobile Application, Drone Survey, Swab

Collection Booth,• Ms. Fathmath Shadiya (U-INSPIRE Maldives): Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism• Ms. Huhana Lyndon (Ngati Hine Forestry Trust New Zealand): To empower family through their homes, sub tribes

and community for provision of crisis support and ongoing wellbeing according to their protocols.Q&A (responding to some of the question posted on the Meeting Chat)

Discussions: Moderated by Prof. Shahbaz KhanChallenges and opportunities on Youth and Young Professional Engagement on COVID-19• Prof. Shahbaz Khan / Ardito M Kodijat: Webinar Output / Statement.• Animesh Kumar of UNDRR and Prof. Rajib Shaw Keio University: One Minutes Reflections of the Webinar (im-

pressions and way forwards)• Mme Shamila Nair-Bedouelle Closing statement ADG/SC UNESCO

Participants of the WebinarRegistered Participants:

• 376 registered from 46 countries, • 162 female and 214 male.• 301 Between the age 20-39• 172 Indicated having activities on COVID-19

Attending Participants:• 180 Participated in the Webinar,

Live Stream on Facebook (on the day of the Webinar):• 3.900 views• 67 Shares• 14 Comments• 11.808 People Reached

News Release of the Webinar• https://en.unesco.org/events/unesco-and-u-

inspire-webinar-asia-and-pacific-youth-and-young-professionals-engagement-covid

• https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-and-u-inspire-alliance-shared-practical-experience-asia-and-pacific-youth-and-young

• https://twitter.com/unescojakarta/status/1263765689208193024

• https://www.facebook.com/UNESCOJakarta/posts/1170890273303148?__tn__=-R

https://en.unesco.org/events/unesco-and-u-inspire-webinar-asia-and-pacific-youth-and-young-professio



Session: Keynote RemarksModerator: Ardito M Kodijat

1. Welcoming Remarks Mr. Pradip Khatiwada Chair of U-INSPIRE Alliance

In his remarks, M.r Pradip Khatiwada welcomed the participants to the webinar and express his appreciation on behalf of U-INSPIRE Alliance to the UNESCO Jakarta Office, Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific for the tremendous support and the joint collaboration for this webinar. He appreciated Madamme Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, Prof. Shahbaz Khan, Mr. Ardito Kodijat and entire team at UNESCO Jakarta office for their continuous guidance and collaborative opportunities. He trusted this webinar is just a beginning of a long list of cooperations ahead.

He iterated that due to the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, people around the world are being widely affected. The increasing number of COVID infected cases has not only created a state of global emergency but also has waxed extreme level of fear, desperation, and hopelessness among the people. However, he think COVID 19 have given also an opportunity to generate a lot of energy that, if harnessed constructively, can be a great source of innovation.

He conveyed that in this webinar there will be some of the great stories and innovations. COVID 19 has unlocked innovations from the grocery or food delivery app, WhatsApp chatbot that notifies customers when to shop, the ‘I will travel again’ initiatives to support travel companies through a gift cards, student group’s VitalMask—a smart respiratory mask that monitors vital signs, low-cost ventilator, PPE, face masks, face shields are some of the examples of the initiatives led by young people.

In this period of pandemic, Mr. Pradip Khatiwada have been leading a technical team based in Nepal together with a research-based partner in India to co-design a COVID monitor platform. The platform has been a common tool for many countries in Asia-Pacific region. The COVID taught us a mechanism to deal with a common problem with a multidisciplinary aspect to promote south-south cooperation. He believes, there are wonderful innovations led by various groups that needs to be documented, communicated, and collaborated for dealing with future crisis.

He mentioned in his remarks that in 2016 UNDP estimates Asia-Pacific home to 1.7 billion young people under the age of 25—many countries in the region are experiencing a youth bulge with more than 20% of people in-between 15-24 age group. However, a large young population in this region are out of quality education and girls and women are still following traditional study pattern and are underrepresented in science, technology, and engineering. However, it is well proven that in any nature of crisis, young people are in the forefront to respond and to find out innovative ways to deal with it. Therefore, he really appreciate that UNESCO has recognized the potential of youth and young professionals and has been supporting for the alliance activities from its inception. He look forward to work together with UNESCO in collaborative immediate, medium, and long-term action plan in near future.

He ended his remarks by conveying appreciation to Prof. Rajib Shaw for always being a motivation and encouragement for U-INSPIRE Alliance and its activities, and similarly to Dr. Animesh Kumar from UNDRR for promoting role of youth and young professionals in various capacities. He thanks the member of U-INSPIRE Alliance and UNESCO; Sufyan, Rahma, Khairul, Iffah, Ganni, Sachi, Iban, Yama, Fajar, Maria, Elyn and Shadiya for their tireless work in the preparation of this webinar.


2. Welcoming Remarks Prof. Shahbaz Khan Director and Representatives UNESCO Office Jakarta, Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific.

Prof. Shahbaz started hir remarks by conveying his highest appreciation for ADG Natural Science, Madamme Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, for spending her time for this webinar as well as for always being a promotor of science and youth.

He reported 376 participants have registered from 46 countries including Africa and Europe. The range of age of the participants are between 19 to over 60 years old. Gender is an important issue working with Youth, 162 female colleagues and 214 male colleagues have registered for this webinar.

Prof. Shahbaz stressed that the youth are the hope of present and future, and UNESCO Science family are always ready to work closely with the youth. He highlighted there has been many activities in SETI where the youth are engaging with COVID-19, based on the registration 172 youth mentioned they have activities engaged in COVID-19. This webinar shared the ongoing activities of the youth and young professional on COVID-19, activities and science-based solutions explored and implemented by colleagues from diverse SETI backgrounds of the U-INSPIRE networks which were originally started in Jakarta in 2018 and has formed an alliance in 2019.

He stressed that COVID-19, as has indicated by WHO, will not disappear in the near future, therefore the youth and young professional have to work on the science based evidence and solution working together and link with communities and societies, as well as with the National Disaster Management Authorities. One aspect in addressing COVID-19 is innovation, to find solution together. Solution can be in the form of vaccine, medicine, ventilators, but also can be in form of lessons that have been learnt together.

Prof. Shahbaz informed that UNESCO Office Jakarta have started to work on lessons learnt from the patients who have recovered and the hope stories. He also reminded that during this COVID-19 other disaster can happened, in this regards, the Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Centre in UNESCO Office Jakarta that is under the two important section of UNESCO (Science Sector and IOC) have come up with a guide on tsunami evacuation during the COVID-19. UNESCO Office Jakarta also working with UNESCO Office Islamabad on how to manage flood disaster during COVID-19.

He thanks UNESCO Jakarta and Paris staff and all U-INSPIRE networks working on this webinar. He look forward for the statement of this webinar that can guide and show how we can work together under difficult situations including South-South cooperation. He conveyed that the statement will be shared at the upcoming webinar with science stakeholders in the region supported by JFIT and MFIT next week in scoping science based action as follow up of the ministerial conference.


2. Keynote Remarks Madamme Shamila Nair-Bedouelle Assistant Director General on Natural Science of UNESCO, Paris

Madamme Shamila started her message by appreciating the Asia and the Pacific youth and young professionals who have stood up in raising the voice of youth and the role of youth, not just for this pandemic, but also in addressing disaster risk reduction and contributing to policies as well as raising awareness, in this case about COVID-19. She welcomes the youth to UNESCO as their home, as the youth are crucial to the mandate of UNESCO to bring education, science, culture and communication to all people of the world. The youth are also hold the keys of transmission of UNESCO’s core and shared values to ensure our ethical interaction with mother earth and her biodiversity. She encouraged all the youth to take this crisis as an opportunity to reflect and share experiences of the harmonious interaction between human and nature.

She reiterated that world is now facing the spread of the COVID-19, one of the simple gesture to stop the spread of the pandemic is through washing hand with water and soap. Youth have to look at safe and clean water as one of the biggest challenge as many people across the world do not have access to safe and clean water. The ADG invites the youth and young professionals in the Asia and the Pacific region to launch the Solar Water Disinfectant Technology to enable people to have low cost and affordable technology to disinfect water for cooking and washing hands during this pandemic.

Madamme Shamila emphasized that the youth can play important role in contributing to the science, technology, and innovation measures, which are the core to control and contain the spreading of this pandemic. She said it might be too early to talk about the lessons from the COVID 19 for future action now. We need to reflect on measuring how we can be better prepared using science, technology and innovation for better data collection and gathering, information sharing, identify the risk and develop risk scenarios, and make plan and implement the plan to cope against the risk of pandemic in the future. Moreover, how can the community and we be prepare for the post pandemic challenges as well as the many other global challenges.

She informed the participants that UNESCO organized numbers of webinar across the world to be able to cope the pandemic and sharing good practices from many different angles, the natural sciences, social sciences or environmental sciences and it is important to share the knowledge across the world and to develop common strategies and solutions. UNESCO is promoting the concept of International Scientific Collaboration and Open Science as was mandated by the governing body of UNESCO in 2019. During this Pandemic there has been a unique movement in collaboration and solidarity among scientist across the world, beyond borders and beyond patents that showed the true spirit of open science, sharing of scientific and technological data. Mrs Shamila emphasized that U-INSPIRE are crucial to be part of this movement in engaging and promoting science for development to make sure no one is left behind.

She stressed that mobilization of scientist, researchers, and innovators will allow this free access to scientific innovation, to reduce the knowledge gap between those who have it and those who don’t. UNESCO will continue to promote the international solidarity through international access to the scientific development needed today to raise our standard of living.

Madamme Shamila is delighted that there is already link between the AYAB-DRR and U-INSPIRE Alliance; she believes the future lies in this discussion and dialogue among these youths in raising the awareness in the fragility of the planet, promoting the coalition between human and nature in harmony, and raising the social awareness and knowledge of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem to avoid the tipping point that can create disasters across the world.

She is very delighted to see the youth and young professionals in Asia and the Pacific are so united especially in assisting the world to provide solutions. We are living in an interconnected world and the interdependency are global we need to support one another. UNESCO need you to jointly co-design and co-create based on our common share values, with the youth, and for the youth. UNESCO invites the youth to work together with UNESCO networks of scientific collaboration to protect the earth, not only for now but also for the future generation.


1. Introduction of U-INSPIRE AllianceDelivered by Dr. Nuraini Rahma Hanifa (Secretary General, U-INSPIRE Alliance – Indonesia)Prepared by N. Rahma Hanifa & Elin Arum Sari

This session provides an introduction of U-INSPIRE Alliance as an alliance of youth and young professionals working through SETI on DRR and Climate Change in line with SDGs and the Sendai Framework to support DRR policy and action at local, national, and international level. U-INSPIRE Alliance believes togetherness and collaboration bring more impact.

Vision and MissionThe vision of U-INSPIRE Alliance is a strong coordination and collaboration for empowering youth and young professionals in SETI in DRR at global level.The Mission of U-INSPIRE Alliance are:

• Bringing voice of youth and young professionals in SETI for DRR.• Creating and endorsing space for youth and young professionals to empower their

role in SETI for DRR• Bridging the valley of death: Leveraging disaster data literacy and development of

open innovation and creative problem solving.• Science Policy Interface with youth and young professionals as the medium.

U-INSPIRE Alliance’s history timeline The initiation started in Jakarta on March 2018, when about 30 Youth and Young Professionals engaged in SETI for DRR were gathered in UNESCO Office Jakarta. They are then committed to work together, and create name of U-INSPIRE in May two years ago, the first launch of the country chapter in Indonesia on November 2018 during the first regional workshop on empowering and mobilizing Youth and Young Professional in SETI for DRR, mobilizing 50 participants from 27 countries. Then continued with other countries such as, Pakistan, Central Asia, Nepal, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Afghanistan. In September 2019, 8 country chapters gathered at UNESCO Jakarta office to declare the formation of U-INSPIRE Alliance. Then the other country chapters continued to launch as well. Currently, we have 11 national chapters and 1 region chapter. The second regional workshop was held in IDMR Sichuan University, China, mobilizing representative from all country chapters and almost 100 Youth and Young Professionals. During the 2nd regional, we had chance to discuss among youth and young professionals on challenges and opportunities to strengthen the coordination and collaboration to work on science, engineering, technology, and innovation capacity to contribute to disaster risk reduction at national and global level. The workshop will also discuss role and function of U-INSPIREs, and catalyze collaborations with other regions. The first inaugural meeting of U-INSPIRE Alliance that supposed to happen in Malaysia following the Asia Pacific Science Technology for DRR Conference was conducted online due to Covid-19 pandemic, on 18 March 2020, agreeing the U-INSPIRE Alliance chart, elected Chair, Co-Chair and Secretary General. U-INSPIRE Alliance is planned to grand launch during the upcoming APMCDRR.

Global EngagementThe global engagement of U-INSPIRE Alliance includes some activities such as participating in various global events and contributing to global DRR related documents. The first appearance of U-INSPIRE ignite stage in the Global Platform in DRR at Geneva 2019, UNESCO’s session on Youth and Young Professionals on the World Bosai Forum 2019 in Japan, International Workshops in Pakistan, Malaysia, Chengdu – China, country chapter launching of Pakistan and Malaysia. On the global DRR related documents, U-INSPIRE has opportunites to contribute in the Word into Action published by UNDRR, toolkit and report on youth and young professionals of UNESCO-U-INSPIRE, UNDRR/ISC Sendai Hazard definition and classification review, and principles to Address Water-related DRR of HELP. Representative of U-INSPIRE has also given opportunity to sit in the APSTAAG UNDRR, representing Young Scientist. Geographically, the activities of U-INSPIRE Alliance were in Indonesia, Pakistan, Central Asia, Geneva, China, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, and Australia.Mentored by UNESCO, APSTAAG - UNDRR, UNMGCY, IRDR, IADRR and prominent individuals, U-INSPIRE Alliance has the major role to:

1. Connect youth in DRR2. Global recognition3. Transboundary problems that need to be addressed4. Catalyst in providing fuel and engine to U-INSPIRE chapters5. To ensure strong collaboration between U-INSPIRE chapters with the youth and

young professionalsU-INSPIRE Alliance also works on connecting the Youth and Young Professionals in SETI for DRR in the Asia Pacific, promotes dialogue capacity building and networking on DRR, promotes innovation, promotes access to DRR information, data and technology, monitors, and evaluates the implementation of Youth and Young Professionals in SETI for DRR.

Session: IntroductionsModerator: Ardito M Kodijat


U-INSPIRE Alliance StructureThe structure of U-INSPIRE Alliance consists advisory board, assembly from representative of each chapters, head by Chair, Co-Chairs for each region, Secretary General, Vices Secretary General, Working Groups and Task Team.

• Chair : Pradip Khatiwada (Nepal)• Co-Chair: East and Southeast Asia: A. Sufyan M. Aslam (Malaysia),

North, Central and South Asia: Serikhan Atanov (Central Asia)• Assembly: Sachi Suzuki (Japan), Mizan Bustanul Fuady Bisri (Indonesia),

Mohd Khairul Zain (Malaysia), Ginbert P. Cuaton (Phillipine), Porntida Poontirakul (Thailand), Shoaib Ahmed (Pakistan), ranit Chatterjee (India), Khausal Raj Gnyawali (Nepal), Ahmad Reshad Aziz (Afghanistan), Fathmath Shadiya (Maldives).

• Secretary General: N. Rahma Hanifa (Indonesia)• Vice Secretary General: Bhola Saha (India), Iffah Farhana (Malaysia)• Working Group 1 Transboundary Issue of DRR: Rishi Garhwal (India)• Working Group 2 Socio-entrepreneur-ship in SETI for DRR: Repaul Kanji (India)• Working Group 3 Science Communication & Evidence-based DRR Advocacy:

Hania Hamdani (Pakistan)• Working Group 4 Knowledge Management on SETI for DRR: Maria Khan

(Pakistan)• Working Group 5 Communication: Elin Arum Sari (Indonesia)

U-INSPIRE Alliance RoadmapThe roadmap of U-INSPIRE Alliance is proposed inline with Science & Technology Roadmap APSTAAG UNDRR and Young Scientist UNMGCY Roadmap for the implementation of SFDRR), consisting of 5 target objectives:

1. Connect Youth & Young Professional (in SETI) for DRR in Asia Pacific• Promote sustainability of Youth and YP ST DRR Regional network (eg. U-INSPIRE Alliance)• Encourage participation of Youth and Young Professionals in Science and Technology for DRR in Regional and National

Level • Promote Development of partnership between Youth and Young Professionals and DRR related organization/agencies/insti-

tution in Asia Pacific2. Promote dialogue, capacity building and networking on DRR

• Mobilize and empower Youth and Young Professionals• Engagement in Regional and Global Event• Support Regional Joint-activities on capacity building and networking for Youth and Young Professionals SETI DRR • Promote Engagement of Higher Education institution in Building DRR related capacity of Youth and Young Professionals• Promote the career development of youth and young professionals in Asia and the Pacific who work in Science, Engineering,

Technology, and Innovation for Disaster Risk Reduction• Promote Science Policy Interface Meeting

3. Promote Innovation on:• Risk and Science Communication• Citizen Science• Low-Cost and emerging Technology• Integrate traditional, indigenous and local knowledge and practices• Transboundary, small island and remote area issues • Socio Entrepreneurship• DRR related Public Health and Medical Emergency

4. Promote access to DRR information, data and technology• Promote accessibility to data, information and technology in DRR for all• Optimization of the use of data, information and technology for DRR

5. Monitoring and Evaluation• Collect information on Youth and Young Professionals implementation of SETI in DRR• Contributing to ST APSTAAG UNDRR report

Participation to the U-INSPIRE Alliance and country chapters is very open and welcome, and more information can be obtain in website and social media:

• Email: [email protected] • Web: http://uinspirealliance.org • Facebook: U-INSPIRE Alliance • Instagram: @uinspire.alliance • Twitter: @UInspireA.


http://uinspirealliance.org

2. Insights from the AYAB DRR - UNESCO Webinar on “Youth Engagement on COVID-19 for the Africa We Want” Presented by Alberto Francioli, AYAB DRR

This presentation served as a brief introduction to the African Youth Advisory Board for Disaster Risk Reduction (AYAB DRR) and reported on a recent joint webinar AYAB DRR held in conjunction with UNESCO exploring Youth Engagement on COVID-19 on the African continent.

The AYAB DRR is a group of 14 members from across the 5 African regional spheres, established by the African Union in May 2019 as part of the key provisions in the Program of Action (PoA) of the Sendai Framework for Africa to promote collective and meaningful Youth engagement and involvement in Disaster Risk Reduction on the African continent as well as across the Globe.

The AYAB DRR’s activities are based off several of the Priority Focus areas of Sendai Framework in which they seek to promote:

1. Research and Knowledge Generation2. Youth Inclusion in Risk Governance3. Youth Empowerment and Capacity Building4. Community engagement and Outreach

On 15 April 2020, AYAB DRR and UNESCO co-hosted a joint Webinar to raise awareness of youth engagement on COVID-19 and the contributions of African Youth towards combatting the impacts of the pandemic. In attendance were representatives from multiple global youth groups and organizations, including U-INSPIRE, as well as speakers from the UNESCO regional office for East Africa, the UNDRR Region of Africa Office and the African Union Commission. In total, over 100 participants attended the webinar, many of them young people from across Africa as well as from over developing regions in Asia, Latin America and Oceania.The discussions from the webinar focused on the use of digital advocacy to raise awareness on COVID 19 among the youth, highlighting the importance of utilising Social media platforms to communicate and engage with youth across continent and to help “reach out to the unreached”.

Discussions also highlighted several Youth led innovations to combat COVID-19 across the continent such as the development of solar powered automated hand washing basins, production and distribution of 3D printed masks at university campuses, translation of risk reduction messages into local languages to name a few.

Presenters spoke on youth involvement as an untapped resource in fight against the coronavirus. Recognising that Youth Networks and organisations such as AYAB DRR and U-INSPIRE could assist in distributing accurate and up-to-date information to inform and protect youth and enhance community resilience. Additionally, such Youth Networks and their members could act as agents of change, leading by example and act as role models among the youth to promote a culture of safety and risk aversion amongst our societies.Outcomes of this webinar included a declaration of support by UNESCO for AYAB DRR initiatives to facilitate the Communication and distribution of information to through innovative IT Solutions; Strengthening young people’s capacity through integrating disaster risk reduction to create culture of safety; and advocating for meaningful youth engagement in disaster risk reduction policies and plans.

The webinar also opened channels of communication and cooperation with other youth groups and networks namely U-INSPIRE. Since the webinar AYAB-DRR and UNISPIRE

have held several meetings to explore and discuss potential areas of joint activity to link youth in African and Asian continents to promote DRR.

For more information and details about the webinar, please see the link for the news story posted by UNESCO: https://en.unesco.org/news/natural-sciences-unesco-joined-hands-africa-youth-advisory-board-disaster-risk-reduction-ayab


https://en.unesco.org/news/natural-sciences-unesco-joined-hands-africa-youth-advisory-board-disaster-risk-reduction-ayab



Session: PresentationsModerator: Sufyan Alam

1. COVID-19 Regional MonitoringDelivered by Dr Ranit Chatterjee U-INSPIRE Alliance –India

Amidst the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, people around the world are being widely affected. The increasing rate of this virus has not only created a state of global emergency but also has created extreme levels of fear, desperation and hopelessness among the people. Meanwhile, various forms of unverified information in different platforms, especially social media have further fueled this fear and desperation. During this hard time, lack of authentic sources of digital and spatial information from reliable institutions is missing making it even more complicated for the general public to identify and avoid major hotspots. Realizing this urgency, a https://covid19-monitor.net/ platform is developed and the member countries from India, Nepal, Malaysia, and Indonesia are engaged for COVID19 data partnership from their respective countries. The web application brings authentic data from verified sources like the government institutions, major media houses, health institutions, UN agencies and other related stakeholders. Furthermore, this system also tracks the locations/routes travelled by the corona patients and make it available in public domain so that the public can avoid the locations as well as related stakeholders can prioritize their response mechanism accordingly. The platform was co-designed by Youth Innovation Lab and RIKA india in partnership with U-INSPIRE Alliance and its country chapters.

Key Activities: 1. Dealing the transboundary issues through collective action from all U-INSPIRE

member countries.2. An open source database of COVID-19 infected patients: data mining from

government sources; crowdsourced data (media coverage, hospital data); and fake news tracing and weeding

3. Training key leaders to use the country database and verify information locally4. Infected person route tracing and identification of hotspots at the city level 5. Location-based advisories 6. Resource mapping: Location of testing centres, identified hospitals, local resources

available (in process of development)


https://covid19-monitor.net/

2. COVID-19 myth busters campaignDelivered by Mr. Serikzhan AtanovU-INSPIRE Central Asia/Dacryn

The “COVID-19 Myth busters! Campaign” aims at tackling false information about COVID-19, by providing reliable and science-based information.

The activity focuses in particular on communities living in remote areas, to help them bridge the language gaps and ensure access to information. The DACRYN members prepared the information sheets about top-10 myths and facts about COVID-19, based on reports of the World Health Organization (WHO) and translated in 5 languages: Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek.

This information is being disseminated through social networks and community radios in order reach remote communities and leave no one behind.


A With a mission to negate misinformation, promotion of the application of science and technology among the youth and young profession relating to novel Coronavirus, various impactful activities were carried out by the Youth and Young Professionals of U-INSPIRE Pakistan. The activities were following:

• Myth Busting series to negate the mis information among the youth.• Mobilizing young researchers to conduct scientific study to better understand

COVID-19.• Webinars focusing on Young professional journey in Coronavirus.

The activities targeted the youth through social media platforms penetrating maximum number of youth possible.

MYTH BUSTING SERIES:A survey carried out among youth relating to the common myth of coronavirus among the youth, revealed that the majority of “Youth believed in false information like the Virus was created in a laboratory in China,” etc. Myth-busting series focused on negating such misinformation spread. Misinformation was refuted with backing from Scientific Literature and the information provided by WHO. For maximum outreach among the youth for the right information, the activity was posted in the national and regional languages, including Urdu, Pushto, Gujrati, and Sindhi. It ensured that the message penetrates to the maximum number of people, even the local people who are not much educated but are quick to believe in superstition and misinformation. It received a positive response and was able to create a lasting impact among youth the misinformation from their minds relating to coronavirus. Moreover, it instilled the sense among them not to believe any information without thoroughly searching about it.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH BY THE YOUNG PROFESSIONALS:U-INSPIRE Pakistan came into existence to mobilize youth and young professionals for SETI for DRR. Committing to the cause of U-INSPIRE Pakistan its youth members performed two researches on the current pandemic of Covid-19.

Predicting the infection peak of Coronavirus in Karachi

There was uncertainty in the country relating to when the peak infection of coronavirus. The youth members of the U-INSPIRE team led by Science Working group lead Ibtihaj presented the idea to predict the infection peak for the Karachi city using a mathematic model. The research is the publishing phase of a peer-review journal.

The research focused on using the SIR model to model the infection for the Karachi city and predict its peak infection rate. The modeled data was validated by modeling the infection data for the Lahore city.

3. Negating misinformation & promoting scientific researchDelivered by Mr. Moeid Mujeeb JilaniU-INSPIRE Pakistan


This presentation is detailed information about Confederation of Risk Reduction Professionals (CRRP India’s / U-INSPIRE India) some engagements to bring change in their own capacities and contribute to the society in any means. Our volunteers are working professionals, academicians and students working in disaster risk management, risk reduction, climate change adaptation and other analogous fields! The brief about our initiatives are mentioned below:

1. COVID-19 MonitorThe COVID -19 Monitor data forms core information for the online portal & CRRP India initiated the task of ‘creating’ the database. Database is created for the online portal to track COVID-19 cases in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan which was designed and launched by YIL and RIKA and CRRP India, thus played a very crucial role in developing COVID-19 Monitor. Just like other databases, this one did not have mere counts/numbers of cases, recoveries and deaths, it had more to contribute! We managed to track and trace the first 8355 cases which was reported in India whereby 16 enthusiastic volunteers worked tirelessly and painstakingly risking their lives for tracking each and every case that was reported. The case reports were cross-checked with multiple sources and verified against the data issued by Ministry to avoid confusion. An absolute sense of data privacy and other ethical considerations have been maintained in terms of anonymity of cases.We failed to trace the cases beyond 8k, but the huge database that we have now is a goldmine and we have planned to make this dataset available only for academic research purposes after due data hygiene.

2. CRRP India in Data VisualizationCRRP India has always believed in Science Communication, Risk Communication!We were observing the development very closely and realised that there were people at one side who required to ‘see’ how bad the situation was but on the other hand there were people who were on other end of the spectrum hoped for possibilities.Based on these observations, CRRP India started publishing visualisations, using the data being collected by our volunteers:

• Cumulative cases was conducted on daily basis for India to establish the intensity of how rapidly the cases are increasing

• Race chart were prepared to show how different states of India are, individually, faring in terms of the number of cases.

• We realised that the race chart gave a feeling of competition among the states, therefore, we designed another visualisation, where we represented the number of cases of each state as an inverse function of its rank.

• We also designed daily charts to impose and showcase the fact that the “rate of recovery” is far better than the “case fatality rate”

• Eventually we realised that the discussion had steered away towards the flattening of the curve and not realizing whether we were moving down the peak or not? Based on this observation, we started making charts showing how some of the states are reporting cases on a daily basis to implore viewers to think, whether it is wise to conclude or not and the same was done for the cumulative cases of India.

4. Awareness Videos and BlogDelivered by Mr. Tanmay Uttam GoundU-INSPIRE India / CRRP

You can access this visualisation @ https://www.crrpindia.org/covid-19


3. Voices of Youth and CRRPIn these trying times, it is absolutely essential that our volunteers, our youth and young professionals to believe that their thoughts, ideas, concerns are mattered. We started encouraging our volunteers to pen down their feelings and the responses have been absolutely thrilling! The blogs are multi-faceted like: Issues regarding the concerns of an ensuing ‘infodemic’ to a gender-sensitive perspective were highlighted and scaled from analysing lockdown through the lens of a DRR researcher to the heartfelt thoughts of DRM professional. The blogs are true representations of how the youth perceive this pandemic and there eagerness to be a part of the solution!

Link: https://www.crrpindia.org/covid-19-blogs

4. Exploring ways of spreading awarenessA group of DRR researchers came together and scripted a video covering these crucial issues and explaining them in as simple manner as possible. The video was widely circulated and comments were received from international organisations, reputed practitioners and experts and based on their comments the second video was designed addressing other, relatively newer, pressing issues and this time around it was made in two regional languages and two more are on its way!

Links: English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSQ76cM-vnkHindi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNT6HBuuXAk

Assamese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Em_gFUftI&t=6sIn addition to this, some researchers, out of their own volition, have started conducting a ‘playful’ survey (that’s what they are calling it) to gauge the psycho-social status of respondents and the responses received till date are very interesting and soon we intend to come out with a document on it!

5. Individual ContributionsIn addition to all these concerted and collective efforts, our members and volunteers in their individual capacity have been contributing in all possible ways.Our members have been actively involved in pushing forward the idea of BCP as well as have been strong proponents of this pandemic, through the lens of DRM and not just a PHE and hence they have conducted many webinars on this agenda.Our members have also been actively involved and vehemently participating in relief distribution in different parts of the country while keeps life at stake.


https://www.crrpindia.org/covid-19-blogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSQ76cM-vnk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNT6HBuuXAk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Em_gFUftI&t=6s

The presentation focuses on the works on COVID-19 by the Science Communication and Knowledge Management Working Groups of U-INSPIRE Indonesia, i.e. on risk and science communication. U-INSPIRE Indonesia’s engagements in risk and science communication consist of (1) factsheet infographics formulation and sharing in social media, (2) conducting webinar with issues addressed by the platform’s works, such as on data & information transparency, (3) creating video featuring recovered patients from COVID-19, (4) conducting social research, and (5) developing a guide for tsunami evacuation in times of COVID-19 crisis. The last two were explained in more detail during the webinar.

Social research. U-INSPIRE Indonesia is part of the Social Panel Team for Disasters which consists of researchers from different institutions, including the national disaster management agency (BNPB). With the urgency to provide evidence-based policy on COVID-19, the team conducted rapid assessment through online questionnaires and phone interviews on four themes which represent the major issues that need to be addressed immediately, i.e. (1) information transparency, (2) Area quarantine, (3) Mobility, and (3) Impact of Large Scale Social Distancing on Resilience. Since supporting policy was the team’s main objective, summary of results and analyses were presented as soon as possible to the government and to the general public. To illustrate one of the small achievements of this effort, the Ministry of Transportation used one of the study results to the President of Indonesia on policy regarding mobility during Eid Holiday season, which had been a major national concern as the event could spread of the virus nationwide.

Guide on tsunami evacuation during the COVID-19 crisis. Realizing the multiple risks of disaster and COVID-19, including earthquake and tsunami, in collaboration with National Disaster Management Agency, Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning Center of BMKG, UNESCO-IOC Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Center, Institute of Technology Bandung, and Indonesian Tsunami Experts Association, U-INSPIRE Indonesia developed a guide for Tsunami evacuation during COVID 19. Local tsunami can arrive in coastline areas in minutes, and it can happen anytime even during COVID-19 Crisis. The guide helps avoid confusion as COVID-19 requires people to stay at home, while tsunami requires people to immediately evacuate. The guide states that the Warning Center shall be operational even during COVID-19 and recalls the tsunami early warning system employed in Indonesia. It further describes measures to be taken before any tsunami occur, during the evacuation based on classification of COVID-19 affected people, and at the tsunami evacuation shelter – to avoid the shelter to become infectious center.

The leaflet is available in English and Indonesian. The guide is already featured in official government websites as one of the COVID-19 protocols. It became an example and reference within UNESCO for disaster response during the COVID-19 crisis. On June 5, 2020, the whole team will conduct webinar to socialize the guide, particularly to the 34 Provincial Disaster Management Agencies and all Local Disaster Management Agencies locating in municipalities exposed to tsunami risk, but also inviting other stakeholders, including media agencies and the general public.

As a reference, here is the link to the Indonesia official Task Force for COVID-19 website and of the UNESCO, where public can access the evacuation guide:

https://covid19.go.id/p/protokol/panduan-langkah-evakuasi-darurat-peringatan-dini-tsunami-dalam-situasi-covid-19; https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/guide_for_tsunami_evacuation_covid-1_final-1_eng.pdf

5. Risk and Science Communication for COVID-19Delivered by Ms. Risye DwiyaniU-INSPIRE Indonesia


https://covid19.go.id/p/protokol/panduan-langkah-evakuasi-darurat-peringatan-dini-tsunami-dalam-situ



The Covid-19 Risk Assessment Tool is developed by Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (RIKA) India Pvt Ltd and supported by amazon web service, India-Japan Laboratory-Keio University and Profecia Links.

6. COVID-19 Risk Assessment ToolDelivered by Ms. Sukhreet BajwaU-INSPIRE India / CRRP

This tool assesses the risk based on a small set of questions. There are four basic parameters: Health, Behaviour, Exposure and Social Policy. Within health, factors of age: since elderly population is more at risk, co-morbidities, gender and smoking are included. The behaviour focuses on use of mask, hand-washing practice, sanitisation before touching face, social distancing. It also includes level of stress or anxiety and trust in the current government measures. The exposure feature includes residential type because sharing an accommodation or being in a clustered building increases the risk. It also includes type of occupation i.e. whether one is on the frontline working in healthcare or law and order or essential services provider. And thirdly the history of travel or being in a mass contact.

The Social Policy factor assesses the effectiveness of lockdown as well as community compliance of social distancing and mask use. Most of the tools which are available online or in app form assess the risk based on medical symptoms. However, this tool factors in behavioural symptoms as well as social policy measures. Such features determine the preventive measures being taken at individual level as well as community level. Till the time there is a set cure, the only effective way is prevention through awareness.

This tool re-iterates the awareness message by prompting the question on compliance of risk-preventive behaviour. Hence, this tool goes beyond the contact tracing and assessment based on medical symptoms and focuses on behavioural assessment. Further, it is simple to use, with minimal data entry. This increases its reach to older people or people who have difficulty in using mobile based apps. It is multi-lingual, currently available in seven different languages. The tool includes maps generated through crowd-sourced data entry. It is cost effective and allows faster decision making for government as well as NGOs or other stakeholders in planning for response. It can be used by anyone to check on the risk of our family or loved ones. The tool collects no personal information related to mobile phone number or email ID, hence it aims to balance the privacy concerns as well. At the end of the survey, the results are depicted in three categories of risk: Low, Moderate and High, based on the values of the input variables.

The final output is also combined with general advisory measures. Hence, this tool works for awareness generation, risk communication and aids in decision-making. This tool has been featured at global platforms like GFDRR weekly and International Science Council weekly. Now it is further being taken up by UNDRR to be customised for risk assessment of MSMEs.


The Activity/Engaging the COVID-19 On-going initiatives in collaborating with social enterprise, NGOs and national youth council Malaysia to leverage local resources and support COVID-19 frontliners in Malaysia. Activities include, support Malaysia Red Crescent Society in making DIY (Do It Yourself) Face shields and apron to cater the shortage of PPE for frontliners, mobilize youth from NGOs and National Youth Council to distribute daily necessities for low-income families and communities. Besides, we also initiate community first aider/paramedics network to provide culturally appropriate and responsive services to low-income communities as the pivotal towards closing the gap in health comes amidst Covid-19 crisis.

The Challenges and Gaps The challenges lie in the difficulties of mobilization of finance and material, as well as the competence technical and organizational commitment in humanitarian operation. Since youth is the most valuable asset, we leverage local resources via multi-organizational collaboration and mobilize youth from National Youth Council Malaysia and Malaysia Red Crescent Society to maximum its capacity. In order to support government in carrying out their continuous effort in combating Covid crisis, we embrace social enterprise’s role in provide health and social services to community at edge and create a sustainable strong role of public-private partnerships with local healthcare services.

7. Leveraging local resources and capacity in solidarity for COVID-19 front linerDelivered by Dr. Vivien How & Mr. Khairuddin bin OthmanU-INSPIRE Malaysia


Background of the activity/engaging the COVID-19,At present the government has stepped up surveillance and mitigation measures in dealing with the latest Corona disease pandemic or COVID-19, but the opportunity for virus transmission between people has not been able to be detected properly is still possible. These cases of infection that are unable or cannot be detected can occur due to the large population of Indonesia, also the unpreparedness of health workers and health facilities in the field. In fact, early detection, identification, and confirmation of Corona virus infection are crucial factors in understanding how COVID-19 transmits or is transmitted from one person to another. In addition, early detection is very important to know the incidence and prevalence of COVID-19 in Indonesia.

This presentation tells the story of an intervention movement against COVID-19 by U-INSPIRE Indonesia in collaboration with various communities which later formed a coalition of citizens named LaporCOVID-19 ( in English called ReportCOVID-19). LaporCOVID-19 is a citizen reporting container that is used to share information about COVID-19-related events that have so far escaped the government’s reach. LaporCOVID-19 uses the crowdsource method approach which involves citizen participation with the help of ChatBot based on the most commonly used chat platforms in Indonesia, namely WhatsApp and Telegram. This container is expected to be able to help the government and other residents to find out the magnitude and magnitude of COVID-19. Expected outputs are the data collected in LaporCOVID-19 can be analyzed and then become recommendations for the government in determining policies and steps for handling COVID-19 in the field and providing education to the public through publication in social media and mass media. In this LaporCOVID-19, U-INSPIRE Indonesia has a role in developing the technology used and processing data collected through the platform that we have created.

Explanation of product/activity/engagement to COVID-19,

Untill now, there are two main products that we have made and developed at LaporCOVID-19 with our collaborators. All products that we have developed are open source, including the following.

1. The reporting platform is based on common chat platforms namely WhatsApp and Telegram

This platform makes it easy for the public to report to LaporCOVID-19 through because the community does not need to install new applications or open certain sites. The community just needs to say hello to our ChatBot based on WhatsApp and Telegram. These two instant messages are the most commonly used by the people of Indonesia. In this Chatbot, the public will be given 7 choices to report, among them are reports of death cases related to COVID-19, reports of crowd locations, self-reported with good health, reports of self-condition and others who have symptoms similar to COVID-19, reports public complaints about health and non-health services provided by the government in a COVID-19 pandemic situation. In further development, we will make additional reporting options, telemedicine features in collaboration with the Indonesian Doctors Association, and also replicate existing ChatBot into new reporting containers based on Facebook and LINE. Following is the reporting flow we made in LaporCOVID-19.

8. The New Normal: Crowdsourcing Reporting Unspoken Conditions Related with COVID-19 by Citizen using Chatting Platform with API and Geolocated BasedDelivered by Mr. Said Fariz HibbanU-INSPIRE Indonesia



2. LaporData by Volunteers of LaporCOVID-19

In this LaporData product, we created a COVID-19 data collection platform from 514 local government sites that were obtained manually by LaporCOVID-19 Volunteers. This was done because the presentation of data by the government was not uniform, so we could not collect data automatically and practically. The platform used is Google Spreadsheets. The volunteers will report the data that is updated every day on the local government website and then enter the data in our reporting sheet. The following is a report on the LaporData report which can be accessed at http://bit.ly/updatedatalaporcovid19

Untill today, we have received 11 thousand datasets from more than 100 volunteers who have joined in assisting us in completing the data of 514 local government sites with the standards that we made. The data will then be stored in our database and visualized in the map that we make. The following is a map visualization which can be viewed through the map.laporcovid19.org site.

The following is a visualization of the ChatBot data that we display on the laporcovid19.org site

http://bit.ly/updatedatalaporcovid19

http://bit.ly/updatedatalaporcovid19


In addition, we process the data every week to produce an infographic presentation that will be publicized to the Indonesian people and as a recommendation to the government through weekly press releases supported by our collaborators in the media and journalism fields. The following is an example of the infographic that we made.

The challenges and gaps

Some things that remain a challenge for us in developing these initiatives are verifying reports from the public because crowdsource methods are quite vulnerable to biased information. We look forward to automating the verification of reports from citizens. In addition, we still need to think about channeling the information we receive to relevant government agencies to be immediately followed up with more targeted policies. Our other challenge is related to making a map of the region’s vulnerability to COVID-19 as made by the NIEHS (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) as displayed on the following website https://covid19pvi.niehs.nih.gov/. Exactly, the development of this vulnerability map requires material and moral support from anyone who wants to collaborate with us.

https://covid19pvi.niehs.nih.gov/

Every disaster brings out both the challenges and opportunities. The challenges seem obvious and are given more priority to launch response and recovery mechanisms. However, the opportunities side of any disaster is also equally important. We had a strong belief that, with the application of Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation (SETI), youths can explore a number of opportunities within the disaster. SETI can be the best initiative to promote and engage Youth and Young Professionals across the globe for sustainable risk reduction. Thus, U-INSPIRE Nepal started to explore the scenarios and co-create ideas to adapt and fight against the COVID-19.

During this pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, the world is compelled to fight against it with measures and precautions. Meanwhile, Nepal started the lockdown strategy March 24 onwards, thereby reducing the susceptibility of transmission through air, vehicles and any other medium. Having known the fact that collaboration is the only unified approach to respond properly to the emergency, U-INSPIRE Nepal also felt the essence of this approach. The volunteers from U-INSPIRE Nepal started to collaborate with the multiple organizations and started to assess the situation. U-INSPIRE Nepal started to work closely with Nepal Engineers’ Association Bagmati Province which is one of the largest provincial executive committees of Nepal Engineers’ Associations (with more than 30,000 registered engineers), having almost three quarters of the whole NEA membership within its umbrella. Necessity is the mother of invention and innovations. Thus, the necessity felt during this COVID-19 outbreak motivated our youths to explore and co-create innovative solutions. Some of the initiatives of Youth and Young Professionals of Nepal in response to the COVID-19 situation are:

1. Social Awareness CampaignAs a problem-solving approach, U-INSPIRE Nepal volunteer Mr. Suman Chapagain and Mr. Suraj Gautam prepared number of Informatory videos regarding the Hand-Washing Measures, COVID-19 Transmission Measures, Dos’ and Don’t, Available Health facilities like Quarantine Centres, Isolation Centres, Swab Collection and Testing Centres, National and Provincial Data Visualization. This has helped in providing the factual and official information to the public through Social Media and U-INSPIRE Nepal community. It has also helped in solving and reducing the unwanted rumors of COVID-19.

Youtube Link (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0zLPBHAI4gz4OxLxQmH7JA)

9. Covid-19 information Portal and Mobile Application, Drone Survey, Swab Collection BoothDelivered by Mr. Suraj GautamU-INSPIRE Nepal

2. COVID-19 Information Portal and Mobile ApplicationU-INSPIRE Nepal volunteers (Suraj, Suman and Uttam) along with other organizations including Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction (IHRR), NAXA, CodeForCoreInnovation and Soch Nepal came up with an idea of developing a dedicated official COVID-19 platform which is capable of giving realtime information regarding the cases, medical facilities and information. The team worked closely with the Ministry of Health and Population of Nepal


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0zLPBHAI4gz4OxLxQmH7JA

and inaugurated the web-portal (https://covid19.mohp.gov.np), Mobile Application named “Hamro Swasthya” on Android and Apple Stores. There are more than 0.13 Million downloads of the mobile application till May 27, 2020. This portal has a special feature of Self-Assessment Form and Suspect Reporting Form, where the user can update their signs and symptoms from their place and get an idea about their vulnerability. The received form is categorized into Red, Yellow and Green headings and are subsequently followed up by the respective authorities. More than 49,969+ reports were received into the system until May 27. Besides, this platform is capable of sharing latest situation reports, interactive maps of medical facilities and COVID-19 Cases, Corona Symptoms and Safety Guidelines.

3. Drone Survey of Hetauda, Capital of Bagmati ProvinceWith the significant drop in air and road vehicular traffic, good visibility, and almost minimal physical movement of citizens outside their houses, U-INSPIRE Nepal with IHRR, NAXA, Nepal Flying Labs, DroNepal have started UAV survey for capturing high-resolution images, thereby exploring opportunities in this lockdown period. Thus, even during this period of minimal movement and lockdown, U-INSPIRE Nepal believes in turning the situation into an opportunity through the SETI approach. The captured image will be processed by the U-INSPIRE Nepal volunteers and the obtained image will be an asset for the City for further urban development planning, preparedness, disaster response planning, evacuation planning and so on. This job has been done voluntarily through the collaborative approach and U-INSPIRE Nepal would be more than happy to collaborate with the potential organizations supporting this initiative. Similarly, this team has also conducted UAV surveys collaborating with the local government of Changu Narayan municipality in Kathmandu Valley.

4. COVID-19 SWAB Collection BoothsNepal Engineers’ Association Bagmati Province being the lead, U-INSPIRE Nepal volunteers aided with the technical support to develop a kiosk which creates a layer between the medical professionals and the suspected patients. Altogether, 17 number of Swab Collection Kiosk has been developed and deployed to the number of Government Hospitals and Health Centres within the Bagmati Province of Kathmandu. The health professional is equipped with Microphone and speaker to communicate with the suspected patient, inlet fan and exhaust fan to maintain positive pressure and the kiosk is made perfectly airtight to reduce the chances of contamination. Hand gloves are attached to the kiosk and professionals use these gloves for the swab collection and the gloves are disinfected every time the sample is taken. This has been a great R&D innovation against the existing swab collection methods and has also been termed as a KIOSK PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).

5. Sister Robot V 1.0Together with Nepal Engineers’ Association Bagmati Province and Robotics Community (Oztech, Kantibir, THE ROBONAUTS, RAN) U-INSPIRE Nepal volunteers have been working hard on the potential R&D products. Out of which, a medicine and food material carrying robot has been developed which is capable of carrying up to 25 kg of materials. Any medical professional can operate the robot by just sitting in the control room of the Hospital or Health Centre and operate the Robot to each bed of the ward within a range of 1-kilometre. This has been deployed to the Isolation Centre of Hetauda Hospital thus reducing the direct contact or contamination chances of the aerosols of the COVID-19 patient to the medical professional.

Drone Survey in Hetauda, Bagmati Province Capital

Sister Robot Being Inaugurated by the chief Minister of Bagmati Province and Being Deployed at Hetauda Hospital


https://covid19.mohp.gov.np

Introduction Novel Corona Virus (Covid-19) was first detected in the Chinese city called Wuhan on 31st December 2019. Although the Chinese government imposed strict measures to contain the virus within Wuhan city, the virus quickly spread across 146 countries by mid-February of 2020. In April 2015, the confirmed cases of Covid-19 reached 2 million in over 200 countries. (Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020). With no Vaccine or known medication to prevent the spread of the disease, most countries responded with various forms of nonpharmaceutical interventions such as lockdowns, home isolations, social distancing, closure of schools, universities, non-essential businesses and travel bans. As a result of the international travel bans imposed by many countries, the global tourism industry was very much affected. It is worthy to note that in the past, global tourism has been exposed to outbreaks such as Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Swine flu and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). However, unlike SARS, Swine flu or MERS, the Covid-19 outbreak was far more destructive to the global tourism industry (Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020).

Tourism is about mobility. The decisions on limiting the movement of people due to Covid-19 has affected air transportation, sea transportation, catering services, accommodation and entertainment which are all commercial activities linked to the tourism industry. Globally the tourism industry plays a significant role in the economic development of many countries. In 2018, the global tourism sector has contributed to creation of 319 million jobs and generation of $8.8 trillion to the world economy. (Kalyankar & Patil, 2020). However, the sector is very susceptible to social, political and economic uncertainties. One of the most profound socio-economic impact of Covid-19 in the tourism industry will be the loss of employment. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, COVID-19 pandemic can result in the loss of 50 million jobs in the global tourism industry. It is also expected that the impact to be worse in the Asia region where tourism is the dominant economic activity. (Sotiris & Theodore, 2020). Maldives being a small island nation deeply invested in the tourism industry, the impact of Covid-19 was heavily felt.

Impact of Covid-19 in the Maldivian Tourism sector. The Maldives generates approximately 30% of direct revenue and 60% of indirect revenue from the tourism industry. Due to the travel ban, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) speculated that the Maldives’ economic growth will fall to a negative 3%. As a consequence of this economic recession, unemployment and income losses are expected to be very significant, specially to the employees working in the tourism sector. Employees working in the tourist resorts and other tourism support industries are expected to experience pay cuts, no-pay leaves and lay-offs. (United Nations Maldives , 2020).

The Maldives confirmed its first Covid-19 positive case on 7th March 2020 at Kuredo island resort. As the Covid-19 worsens globally, there was a decline of 22.8% of tourist’s arrivals by mid-March. Due to this decline in tourist visits, about 90% of resorts decided to send their workers on “no-pay leave”, while 10 % of the employees experienced salary cuts up to 15-20% ( Ministry of Economic Development, 2020). As most of the employees who work in the tourism sector were the sole breadwinners in their family, this sudden loss of employment or reduction in salary has put many families in a financial vulnerable position. Furthermore, owing to the sudden job termination, many employers who lost their jobs are not sure if they will get their job back any time soon, as a result, these employers are very much worried about their current condition.

Number of Covid-19 cases in the Maldives. Source: (Ministry of Health, 2020)Confirmed cases by 15th May 2020 933Recovered cases 45Death 4

U-INSPIRE Maldives current and future activities. In addition to tourism need assessments, U-INSPIRE Maldives is also studying barriers to youth voluntarism. From one assessment conducted on “youth voluntarism”, U-INSPIRE Maldives has recognized that two factors that deters youth from voluntarism are:

1. Lack of technical knowledge of volunteers who volunteer to work in emergency operation centers.

2. Hesitancy by youths to work as volunteers because of living conditions. Many youths in the capital city live with their extended families, as a result they fear, if they go outside, they might expose elderly in their families to Covid-19.

In conclusion it can be said that, in the coming days, U-INSPIRE Maldives will concentrate to conduct in-depth needs assessment to prepare educational materials to educate the public about the “New Normal” the government is planning start once the lock down is over.

10. Impact of COVID-19 on TourismDelivered by Ms. Fathmath ShadiyaU-INSPIRE Maldives


The “Te Manawaroa o Ngati Hine” means to empower family through their homes, sub-tribes, and community for the provision of crisis support and ongoing wellbeing according to their own protocols. The location of Ngati Hine - subtribes of community - in New Zealand which is in the Northland Region. The place has been under lockdown for a while to flatten the curve. 21 death cases were found out of 1500 confirmed cases in the whole New Zealand, while there were no death cases out of 28 cases in the Northland Region.

The approach of “Te Manawaroa” project can be characterized by strategic leadership, regional approach, planning, cultural leadership, communications, intelligence, logistics, and front-line service delivery. In combination with strong national leadership, tribal communities lead their response with a focus on family wellbeing, called “Where Whanau”. They planned united long-term recovery plans across different organizations (community groups, businesses, local government, religious leaders, and families) at all levels arranged by the Ngati Hine. To provide a united long-term response to COVID-19, they have been targeting in the area of welfare, health & wellbeing, social support, and economic recovery.

For the community wellbeing, “Hauora” in the local language, the health team visited the local community to provide services of the drive-through testing stations and volunteers visited elders’ houses with food. They served a food delivery, the Kete Koha, that means a basket donation, as the collaboration of the tribal, community, government, and corporate as the community welfare response. This also contributed to let the family stay at home during the lockdown. The importance of understanding the status and needs of the local community and mainstream Maori approaches to a local, regional, and national was the approach by the youth.

12. To empower family through their homes, sub tribes and community for provision of crisis support and ongoing wellbeing according to their protocols.Delivered by Ms. Huhana LyndonNgati Hine Forestry Trust New Zealand


Session: DiscusionsModerator: Prof. Shahbaz Khan

Challenges and opportunities on Youth and Young Professional Engagement on COVID-19

Webinar Output StatementDelivered by Prof. Shahbaz Khan / Ardito M Kodijat

Reflections of the Webinar (impressions and way forwards)

Prof. Shahbaz Khan and Mr. Ardito M Kodijat presented the draft output statement of the webinar as follows:

• UNESCO recognizes and appreciates the engagements of YYP in the effort to fight COVID-19 through their activities at different levels. UNESCO encourages the YYP to: 1) continue to use their creativity, knowledge, innovation, technology, and potential to find solutions and drive changes caused by this COVID-19 situation; 2) to continue their work in COVID-19, with active engagement of all stakeholders, and to pioneer actively sharing of information, data and outputs to be more widely accessible among the youth networks as well as the society.

• UNESCO will continue to advocate and facilitate YYP platforms such as U-INSPIREs (in Asia and the Pacific) and AYAB (in Africa) to promote the use of SETI approaches to address the issues in DRR and water security aligned with the SFDRR and SDG. UNESCO encourage the Youth and Young Professionals’ platforms to actively participate in UNESCO Youth Programs such as UNESCO Youth Forum, Youth UNESCO Climate Action Network (YoU-CAN) as well as other United Nations youth programs.

• U-INSPIRE Alliance in coordination with the U-INSPIRE National Chapters will continue to advocate, encourage, and mobilize their members to continue and actively work and engage in COVID-19 activities at all levels to find solutions and good practices to respond to these COVID-19 challenges.

• U-INSPIRE would continue to advocate meaningful engagement of YYP in the implementation of DRR, water security, and climate change policies and plans through SETI, and continue to strengthen collaborations among the U-INSPIRE National Chapters as well as with other Regional Youth Organizations around the World.

In addition to the output a follow up suggestion covers:

• There are a number of good practices, lessons learnt, case studies of youth and young professionals’ initiatives on COVID-19. In the registration of this webinar (as of 14 May 2020) 172 people stated they have engagement activities to COVID-19. This could be a good documentation of compilation of Youth and Young Professionals engagement in COVID-19. Therefore, UNESCO, U-INSPIRE Alliance, and AYAB-DRR could lead the compilation of practical experience, good practice, lessons learnt, and case studies of youth and young professional’s initiatives on COVID-19, which would serve as an educational material for future pandemics.

Dr. Animesh’s remarks, United Nations Office For Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Dr. Animesh appreciated and thanked UNESCO and U-INSPIRE Alliance for the Webinar. He reffers to Dr. Shamila’s talk and emphasized on the importance of SFDRR in this scenario of pandemic. He also highlighted how SFDRR has brought biological hazards and DRR together. In the previous years, the Disaster Risk community has been seen to be working so closely with health professionals to tackle the health crisis, which has never been seen before. In most countries of Asia Pacific, the Disaster Risk Management authorities are coordinating the response and recovery from the pandemic. He raised an important point that years back in Thailand, the Bangkok principles were adopted. This included 7 principles with very actionable components which bring health and SFDRR to get. However, these principles have not got much attraction, but now, the Governments are requesting to operationalize it. He also said that Bangkok Principles have given a strong basis to take it forward.

Dr. Animesh also pointed out Professor Shahbaz’s talk. He said that considering we do not have any vaccination of medication for the virus, the only option left is to live with it. This option leads to the point where the “new normal” has become essential to be defined. He also mentioned that normally with disasters we expect them to have an end stage and then a recovery stage, but the case is different with Covid-19. And that we will have to skip the end stage since it is not in sight and move directly to the recovery stage. And how it will define the new normal shall be something that we will have to explore together.

He gave three suggestions that will be opportunities that can be explored together and U-INSPIRE can be a strong platform to do so.

• Firstly, he talked about technology, that was talked about earlier in the session as well. He said that it’s very important

Prof. Shahbaz was pleased for all the great 12 presentations. He ensured the participants that there will be a summary of this webinar and will be accessible for all participants. He then asked what were the key challenges and how can we work together from all of this. Two participants responded to the question.

Dr. Daniel Mahadzir from MalaysiaHe expressed the digital divide within the community, both in digital literacy, is an important issue. He asked U-INSPIRE and all participants how we can interact and overcome this issue.

Irina Rafliana from IndonesiaShe really felt the excitement from all the presentations today. They are redefining complex risk against our traditional DRR systems. The UN, government, and international organizations can allow wider space for the Youth to collaborate. The tsunami guide has been adopted by the northern organizations, so this is really a cross-boundary movement. The Youth can always appreciate all these resources.


Closing Statement by Assistant Director General for Natural ScienceMme Shamila Nair-Bedouelle

Prof. Rajib Shaw Keio University / Chair of Asia Pacific Sciente and Technology Advisory Group (UNDRR)

Prof. Rajib Shaw appreciated the initiatives and the diversity of experiences. Also, congratulated the U-INSPIRE Alliance team and UNESCO for organizing this webinar. He said that he sees these initiatives in three categories.

• The first is technological innovation. With this, he emphasized on making an attempt, at least. No matter if the attempt fails or succeeds. This attempt should be made on both, individual and collective level. He suggested that we should critically analyze and document not only the good practices but also the lessons learnt from the failures, so that these documentations can help us in future.

• Secondly, Mr. Rajib spoke about how these initiatives involve data science. He highlighted that data science has played an important role in DRR for many years, but possibly COVID19 told us how this big data can play a significant part in scenario planning and different types of phasing out. He advised to strengthen our knowledge of data science and expressed his interest in knowing the outcomes and experiences.

• Thirdly, he appreciated the advocacy and communication part of U-INSPIRE and expressed his hopes with U-INSPIRE to continue doing this work for other disasters as well. He also mentioned that in many cases, we are moving from response to recovery phase, and he seeks U-INSPIRE and UNESCO to contribute in this phase too.

Prof. Rajib Shaw also emphasized that this recovery phase differs from country to country, and the documentation and analysis of this contact specific recovery phase (Fiscal recovery, psychosocial recovery, livelihood, or any other type of recovery) should be an area where he expects U-INSPIRE to work on.

At the end, he shared that he was approached by a Canadian journal to give a “Time capsule message” to the people in 2050, for writing this message he took his mind 30 years back to year 1990 where this whole international decade of DRR was started, he realized that we have significantly changed over the period of time. In connection to this, he proposed an idea for the youth, which revolved around thinking about the lessons learnt from this particular disaster and bring them forward for the future generations. He closed his talk by again congratulating the organizers and extended his hopes to the youth for the future.

that the technology should not only be low cost and easily operable but also should be carbon neutral and climate sensitive. A stage is reached where carbondioxide emission in 2020 is 80% less that 2019. And that we should try to maintain these levels as we won’t get this opportunity back

• Second point he talked about was innovation and how, through the platform of U-INSPIRE, we could share these innovations as we don’t have the time to start from scratch. He gave an example of Sukreet’s presentation on the covid-19 risk assessment tool which was a good one and how it is now being replicated for business resilience. And this is the whole advantage of sharing innovations.

• Last suggestion that he talked about was that we often tend to generate knowledge, but that knowledge needs to be translated into behavioral change which in turn needs to be translated into attitudinal change. Hence, the need of the hour is to bridge the gap between knowledge and behavior which can be done through right communication.

Lastly, he highlighted the role of U-INSPIRE and all the participants of the session in helping to build this communication channel and strengthen the medium of communication including the social media, so we can together fill up this gap.

Madamme Shamila started by appreciating all the innovations and how she feels motivated and inspired by them. She referred to a presentation where the presenter labeled UNESCO to be the hope, however, she turned it back to the youth by saying that youth is the hope.

Her closing remarks revolved around how the youth can play a role in spreading science and technology across the world. She mentioned that youth has the capability to bring a transformative change, and the changes that are needed in attitude, behavior and society. She said only youth can develop new technologies and can bring the technology into development.

Dr. Shamila stated how youth is the key to the future. How it has access to multitude of ideas and innovative engineering scientific methods that are necessary today. And so, the future must be co-designed with the youth. She highlighted the importance of science, engineering and technology for the future of mankind. She also talked about how important it is to put us on a good track of sustainable production, consumption and economic growth and environmental sustainability.

She raised an important concern of not having access of science, technology and innovation in schools. She emphasized on the fact that we need STEM education and labeled youth as an agent of starting this movement of spreading STEM education across the world. She encouraged youth to pass on the values of science that they have, to the millions of children across the world, who are unable even to go to school today. She also spoke about UNESCO micro-science kits and about the UNESCO micro-robotics, but again, this must be spread around the world, for which the youth must become the agent. Through this movement, the children will develop love for science, will want to follow science, and will realize the need of chemistry, physics and biology.

Dr. Shamila motivated the youth by giving example of her own life. She spoke about how without any educational background, she developed interest in biology after receiving a used microscope that she then use to observe a leaf, without knowing what a microscope was. She said, there are millions of children across the globe who are waiting for this opportunity, and U-INSPIRE can provide them with the opportunity. She openly invited the youth to this movement for science education together with Jakarta office and UNESCO. So that, every child across the world becomes science literate and be able to shake the world and make a difference,

At last, she suggested to identify three activities among the participant countries to replicate, for what she called interregional fertilization and interregional collaboration. She encouraged to share experiences across regions, since science knows no boundaries. In the end, she expressed her interest in working with U-INSPIRE, so that science is at the hands of every child, she also mentioned that this collaboration will ensure that we have a sustainable planet, with science expertise to handle the planet.


Moderators of the Webinar

Organizers of the Webinar

Snapshots of the Webinar


Ahmad Sufyan Mohamed AslamPradip KhatiwadaRahma HanifaElin Arum SariFajar ShidiqKhairul ZainSachi SuzukiShoaib AhmedMaria KhanIffah FarhanaSaid Fariz Hibban

U-INPSPIRE MalaysiaU-INPSPIRE NepalU-INPSPIRE IndonesiaU-INPSPIRE IndonesiaU-INPSPIRE IndonesiaU-INPSPIRE MalaysiaU-INPSPIRE JapanU-INPSPIRE PakistanU-INPSPIRE PakistanU-INPSPIRE MalaysiaU-INPSPIRE Indonesia

[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]

Ardito M KodijatGanni Ramadian MulyaYama Cipta TusandaSachi Suzuki

[email protected]@[email protected]@unesco.org

UNESCO Office Jakarta

U-INSPIRE Alliance

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