After a week of workshops and five weeks of online brainstorming, discussion, and mentoring sessions, the UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2021 finally reached its final phase! On Friday, 12 November 2021, the five teams or UWRC 2021 were presented their final ideas and solutions to the juries. Slightly different from the previous team's presentation, we were finally able to see the collaboration between the team and their mentor on this final presentation! At the end of every team's presentations, 2-3 minutes were allocated to the team's mentor, allowing them to give the final and closing statement to promote and boost the team's winning chance!
All the teams also created a banner consisting of their problem identification and offered solutions. The team's banners were then uploaded on our Instagram account to determine the favourite team's banner based on Instagram likes. The winning team banner and the favourite banner will then be printed and showcased at the 13th Southeast Asian Biosphere Reserves Network (SeaBRnet) Meeting & International Conference 2021 in Mataram, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.
The Final Presentation
The Final Presentation was started at 02.00 PM Jakarta's time by few words from The Water Agency, followed by the introduction of the final juries: Rien Dam as a representative of Water NL, Maulana Rizki from UNESCO Jakarta, Gregor Van Essen from The Water Agency, Meliawati from Rinjani – Lombok UNESCO Global Geopark Management Agency, and Baiq Sri Mulya from Destination Management Organization (DMO) Sembalun.
Afterwards, the back-to-back team's presentation began. The final presentation allowed each team to present their final results only for 10 minutes, followed by 2 minutes closing statement from the mentor and 5-7 minutes of Q&A with the juries.
Look here for the presentations on the Indonesia Water Portal
Learning Ground for the Young Water Leaders
As the urgency and complexity of water and other climate-related problems in Indonesia are increasing dramatically, educating the next generation of water and climate leaders is a priority for Indonesia, now and in the coming years. One of the best ways to do this is by engaging young people with real water-related problems, challenge them to look at different aspects of water management, give them room to contribute their own ideas and solutions, and let them learn from experienced professionals in the field.
This is what UNESCO and The Water Agency is aiming to achieve through UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2021: creating a unique learning opportunity for high motivated students to contribute their original and innovative ideas into one of the most unique, valuable, and vulnerable ecosystems in Indonesia, the Rinjani-Lombok Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGp).
Introducing: UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2021
UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2021 is a unique capacity-building program where 25 Young Water Leaders will be selected, mentored, and challenged to learn about all aspects of the reserve area and watershed, analyze the critical issues, and develop their original concepts to address these – all within the four weeks of mentoring session. Sembalun District near the Rinjani - Lombok Biosphere Reserve and UGGp, West Nusa Tenggara, is chosen as the case study area for this challenge, where a mix of water-related issues lies there.
Considering and carefully watching the current Covid-19 pandemic situation in Indonesia, the Challenge will be conducted fully online to ensure the safety of every participant while making sure the learning process continues and the Challenge can inspire everyone.
What the Challenge is about
Indonesia Healthy Rivers Challenge 2020 is our capacity-building program that challenges and inspires Indonesia's Young River Leaders to contribute their own original ideas and solutions towards the sustainable development of river basins.
In this first edition, the Challenge took place in the Welang River, East Java, where it suffered from a number of water-related problems, many of these problems were caused by man-made disturbances in the river catchment area.
Phase III of Indonesia Healthy Rivers Challenge 2020: The Final Battle
After five months of fun and educative learning, Indonesia Healthy Rivers Challenge 2020 eventually came to its final phase. Following Phase I in November 2020 with a field visit and Phase II from November 2020 to March 2021 with online mentoring session activities, all the five teams were about to present their grand designs about their solutions for the Welang River.
Phase III of the Challenge was held on 15-18 March 2021 in Pasuruan, East Java with the main agenda of final presentation from the incredible teams and then, winner announcement.
Day 1
To begin the first day of Phase III, an opening speech was delivered by our representative, Mr. Rangga Rishar. Thereafter, all the five teams straight away went for group discussion with their mentors to finalize their designs and came up with banners in Bahasa and English to promote their ideas as the solution for the Welang River. They also used this time to put their magical finishing touch on their presentation and do the rehearsal to deliver their ideas perfectly in front of the mentors and experts.
Day 2
After a long journey of identifying problems, brewing ideas and multiple mentoring sessions, finally, our Young River Leaders were ready to present their grand designs. This final presentation was attended by experts and guests, both present in Pasuran and joined online from the Netherlands. Each team was given 20 minutes to pitch their ideas that followed by a Q&A session where the experts took turns to ask questions and gave constructive inputs. With that being said, what did each team come to offer?
Bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and the Netherlands
The Government of the Netherlands (GON) through the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Government of Indonesia (GOI) through its Ministry of Public Works and Housing (PUPR) have long-lasting cooperation on the water which is secured in a Memorandum of Understanding on Water (MoU-Water) for 2015-2020.
In March 2020, both governments have agreed to extend the current MoU, with the aim to sign a new MoU by the end of 2020. At this stage four main themes have been defined as the conceptual framework for the bilateral cooperation, namely 1) Resilient cities, 2) Integrated Water Resource Management (including River Basin Management) 3) Water governance and 4) Smart water.
Under the proposed new MoU, the Government of East-Java and the Netherlands have agreed to develop a Flood Management and Master Plan for the Welang River. This project supports the Indonesian national priority program, which is enlisted in Presidential Decrees No. 56/2018 and No. 80/2019.
Supporting this project, the Government of East-Java and the Netherlands have commissioned The Water Agency to organise the Healthy Rivers Challenge to engage students and young professionals with the bilateral collaboration and educate them about the importance of sustainable river management and to generate innovative ideas and solutions for the Welang River that can provide inspiration and input for the Master Plan.
Welcome to the Indonesia Water Challenge 2019!
With over 17,500 islands make up the nation, which is flanked by the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Indonesia has a rich history of trade across seas. However, Indonesian ports have underperformed mainly due to poor infrastructure. Shortcomings in maritime logistics and operations continue to result in poor connectivity between the islands, undermining trade and competitiveness. Under President Joko Widodo administration with the “Sea Toll Road” or “Ocean Highway” initiative, a more coordinated network of ports designed to better handle international traffic and streamline more local trade system in 2014, Indonesia is undertaking a major overhaul of its current port network and beginning to adopt Eco-Smart Port concept.
