Mobilizing youth for disaster risk reduction

Participants from U-Inspire networks in Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan and Philippines presented their local initiatives and discussed success factors and challenges they face.

The participants decided to establish the Asia Pacific Youth and Young Professionals Alliance. UNESCO Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific committed to professionally support the formal launch of the Alliance in May 2020 in Brisbane, Australia, in conjunction with the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on DRR.

ISC Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) took part in the 2-day focus group discussion held in conjunction with the UNESCO Jakarta’s “Science to Enable and Empower Asia Pacific for SDGs 2”. This discussion contributed to the development of UNESCO’s toolkit publication to showcase best practice examples and provide guidance on how youth can link with and contribute to regional, national and global disaster risk reduction activities and frameworks.

U-Inspire was established in 2018 by UNESCO together with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and Global Science and Technology Advisory Board of UNISDR. The objective of U-Inspire is to mobilize and increase awareness among youth and young professionals in science, engineering, technology and innovation for disaster risk reduction and to facilitate their collaboration with other stakeholders.