 Welcome everyone to the Young Water Professionals Get Together perspectives from Asia-Pacific Youth on the UN Water Conference 2023. We are delighted that you can join us today. My name is Yang Bila from the IWA Grunfoss Youth Action for SDG6 Fellowship Program, and I will be one of your moderators for today. My co-moderator, Dr. Purvisa Vairi from Young Professionals in Foreign Policy or YPFP Tokyo will be joining us later. This workshop webinar is a joint event of the International Water Association and YPFP Tokyo as a follow-through on the UN Water Conference held last March in New York City. Before we begin, I would like to invite everyone to please use the chat box to state your name, your role, your organization, and the country where you are joining from. These are some of the reminders about this event. We are recording this event. It will be available on demand on the IWA Connect Plus along with any resources that you might find from today's presentation. The speakers are also responsible for their own opinions, and it does not reflect on IWA as an organization. And at any time, please do post your questions using the chat function. While we are waiting on you to introduce yourselves in the chat, we're happy to show you today's program. We have lined up for you a group of young professional speakers who will summarize their key takeaways from the UN Water Conference. This will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with four distinguished speakers. We'll then have a 15-minute breakout session where you will have the chance to reflect on the topic with other participants, and we will invite volunteers to share back their key discussion points before we close the program. Now without further ado, I would like to invite Chelsea Hayward of the IWA Young Water Professionals Steering Committee, and also an IWA Grunforce Youth Action for SDG6 Fellow for her opening remarks. Chelsea? Thank you. And it's great to see many people joining us today and being based in Australia. I'm particularly excited to be part of a session focused on the Asia-Pacific region. So without further ado, on behalf of the International Water Association, I warmly welcome you to this session where we look forward to sharing youth perspectives from the UN 2023 Water Conference. IWA is proud to be advocating for youth engagement in the global water sector. So in line with this, IWA has partnered with Grunforce for the Youth Action for SDG6 Fellowship, which is mobilizing 14 diverse young water professionals from around the world who actively participated in the UN 2023 Water Conference back in March and are now working to share their experiences and highlight the critical role that young people play in the implementation of the UN's Development Goals agenda. On a personal note, I have to say that being at the conference was an incredible experience, and I'm definitely very energised to continue the momentum by getting more youth engaged in action towards the sustainable water future. And other fellows joining me today are Anik Siddippi and Krithika, who you'll hear from shortly as well. For those who aren't familiar with IWA, IWA has a global network of over 16,000 members, covering a broad range of knowledge areas across various universities, research institutions, universities, regulators, and input. IWA has a range of programmes and initiatives to give members opportunities to network and exchange knowledge. This includes newsletters, journals, online member platforms, IWA Connect, as well as through groups and forums, including a broad range of specialist groups and our young water professionals, something to say that IWA has a wide range of IWDs, locally, regionally and internationally, empowering them to build their networks and their careers in the water sector. There are many opportunities for IWPs within IWA. This includes engagement and exposure to thought leaders in the water sector, leadership and professional development opportunities through IWA events and programmes, giving members up-to-date on global water matters and the latest advancements in the water sector, and of course, many opportunities to build meaningful relationships, both with fellow IWPs and more experienced water professionals as well. So this session, of course, is an example of the opportunities available. We've designed the session to be interactive, so I encourage you on fellow water people around the world and please enjoy the session. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chelsea, I now welcome Ericko Yamada, managing director of YPFP Tokyo for her opening remarks. Thank you so much for the introduction. Hello, everyone. I'm Ericko Yamada, the managing director beyond professionals in foreign policy or YPFP Tokyo. I'm delighted to be here today to share some opening remarks on behalf of YPFP Tokyo alongside our partners from IWA. YPFP Tokyo is a youth-led, youth-focused NGO dedicated to nurturing the next generation of foreign policy leaders with a particular focus on the Asia Pacific. Our work is broad and inclusive and our programming is organised into three streams, the first one being sustainability, climate and innovation, followed by international relations and human rights and security and defence. Within these streams, we create spaces for intellectual growth and research, open dialogue, intergenerational co-leadership, networking and partnerships at the local and global levels. Earlier this year, YPFP Tokyo received our special accreditation as a stakeholder to the UN 2023 Water Conference, which interested us with the privilege of sending representatives to attend the conference in person at UN headquarters in New York. Our program included knowledge sharing and capacity building within the priority areas set by the Water Conference. We recruited 15 delegates led by Dr. Pravee Zaveri and J. McJohnny, who met to exchange views and deepen their understanding of water issues. The outcome was a policy brief, which was published ahead of the conference, where nine of our 15 delegates were able to contribute in person. It was during that time that we enjoyed meeting with our partners at IWA and many others who specialize in water issues. One point that I would like to emphasize is that you do not need to be a specialist in water issues to be able to make a positive change in this field. It is never too soon for young people to learn how they can contribute to achieving SDG6. It is very, very important for those who are specialists with more experience and qualifications to find ways to meaningfully include young people in the development of best practices and solutions. While YPFP Tokyo was honored to be a youth stakeholder to the Water Conference, we noted that there should have been more young leaders present and there should also have been more budget allocated to supporting young youth engagement at the conference. Youth are the custodians of the future and youth like us need the skills and experiences to tackle current issues now if we are to ensure a sustainable world. Therefore, today's event is about prioritizing youth voices to achieve SDG6. You can learn more about YPFP Tokyo by visiting the links in the chat. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thank you so much, Chelsea. Just for the audience, I'm Dr. Poojee Zeweri and I'm from YPFP. I'll be also helping young to moderate the sessions. And thank you, Arifko, for giving us a short brief on how the event and how YPFP was involved with the UN Water Conference. And thank you for emphasizing youth's involvement in the whole process. Now we would move on for listening to the summaries of the 2023 UN Water Conference, which would be delivered by all the youth professionals and speakers. To summarize the first team, I would like to invite Dr. Sudhipri Arora from IWA, Youth Action SDG6 Fellowship Program. Rory is open to you, Sudhipri. Thank you. Thank you so much, Poojee and Yand for moderating this session. I am Dr. Sudhipri Arora. I am also one of the IWA Grand First Youth Action for SDG6 fellow. I was there attending UN Water Conference as a part of IWA Grand First delegation. And trust me, it was one of the experiences. The room, the whole conference was filled with a lot of youth, yes, definitely. And it was very engaging. Well, to if I speak about interactive dialogue one, that is water for health. So what I feel is, yes, this is one of the most priority, most sensitive area, because water is, no doubt, very important. But when water comes to interlink with health, it becomes the most important area because there is no life without water. There's no life without health. If we talk about this particular area, we can, if we just see that this is directly linked to one of the three targets. For example, if we talk about safe drinking water, yes, we need water to prevent a lot of waterborne diseases. It is directly linked to the health. Well, affordable and accessible safe watch services is one of the key primary focus of the United Water Conference as well, when we really had interactive discussions over the table for safe watch services. And when I talk about watch services, one of the very important thing that comes to my mind is the menstrual hygiene management. How can we just ignore the women in this area? So if we talk about health, another important aspect that comes is the mental health. Well, we should understand that this particular SDG-6 is not only directly linked to these three targets, it also has interlinked with other SDGs. For example, if we will improve upon SDG-6, we can focus upon SDG-3, that is good health and well-being, moving to better food, so we can have access to SDG-2, SDG-1 and food. So these all SDGs are definitely interlinked and moving on. Now I'll be also speaking about what was the youth engagement. How can I have next slide, Chelsea? Thank you. So what I feel is, yes, youth participation in the youth and water conference is now getting beyond it. There were more than 700 commitments coming from the youth in just three days of conference and it's definitely going beyond. We need faster actions. Well, the involvement of youth is not only now restricted to the capacity developments or skill training, it is also equally important if we talk about policy, advocacy and governance. There is a need of more youth-led water movements, youth water networks, such as this particular IWS fellowship or YPSP-Tokyo, these were some of the organizations that were there, but more than that, it was going beyond the youth movement. And lastly, what I feel is that youth need to be empowered. Youth need to be the change makers to go ahead because again, I will reiterate my main learning from the youth and water conference was three-eye approach. Youth has the new perspectives over the table, so they have definitely more innovative strategies to tackle with the problem. Then we need the integration of the youth with other policy makers or government people and lastly, the implementation of these solutions. So this is what I feel about the perspectives of youth in the water conference. Thank you. Thank you very much. Siddiqui, moving on to theme two, water for sustainable development. I invite Navo Chujo from YPSP-Tokyo. Thank you. So what's the second you speak? I'd like to summarize the key points of the interactive dialogue theme two, water for sustainable development, by doing water, water energy food nexus and sustainable economic and urban development. Please change the slide. First of all, yeah. Just to let me quickly introduce myself, I am Navo and attended the UN water conference this March as a YPSP-Tokyo task member. I am doing my master's in water resources engineering in Germany and currently doing an internship in water in the municipality. The key conclusion about water for sustainable development is summarized to these six points after the interactive dialogue at the conference. First, water services providers need to be more technically and more public and private investment. And this there needs to be support to countries to generate and use the insights, the data and information used for clean water and sanitation. Capacity development and innovation are crucial for finding new solutions and making a significant impact on a large scale. And also acknowledge multiple values of water in governance is the key. This includes benefit sharing in water governance, ecological values for resilient water management. For all of those integrated water resources management is critical to managing land and water resources to maximize well-equitable water. Please move to the next slide. So, yeah, based on these key points, some recommendations are made in each three area. So for valuing water, for example, economic evaluation of water services is the key to correcting the water access imbalance. At the same time, government is encouraged to determine the cost of inaction on water evaluation to society. Also, concession of financing for water project is essential and the development bug have a critical law to play in financing water for sustainable development. To reduce the water pollution, leadership of industry or cycle ecosystem should be more focused and the incentives are suggested to improve performance and attract private finance and training for water resources managers across all sectors for their need and their own managers are also recommended. Yeah, the next one is for water energy for the next test. Sorry. It's just these four points. Investment in less water intensive renewable energy, efficiency measures along the entire water chain and the agro-ecological approaches or improved monitoring of water use and transformative water management systems in this part. And for sustainable economic and urban development, there are more of the billet points are recommended, but basically they are like more integrated whole system planning, stabilizing and expanding your finances and either room by room education. And you can see the other points that here, marginalized group like women indigenous and youth have a role in systems stewardship and the water governance. This part I like to use was mentioned and it emphasized as these voices must be incorporated into water governance models that are future and equitable in our work. While I was attending several side event sessions in the conference, I saw many examples of implementing projects which covers key points in the importance of them, such as capacity development in management and leadership utilizing data modeling and private sector financing. But there is in the governance, I think capacity development for youth and for private sector to recognize youth as a key participant in the project is all important. That is rushing, but a quick summary of same to from me. Thank you for your attention. It's really difficult to compromise. I mean, summarize the whole thing with the given time and I understand that you have tried your best to give us the summary. So for the team three, I would like to invite Jay Makarjani from IPFP. Chai Flo is yours. Thank you, Dr. Poovi and Yang for moderating the session and thank you to all the participants and welcome. And my theme as you all can see on the screen is water for climate resilience and environment. There are lots of issues on which we all can talk and discuss and debate on this, but I would like to start with this one question, which was discussed at length even in the water conference at UN, which was how international cooperation and knowledge sharing could contribute to the addressing the water related challenges, which can help us enhancing the resilience in the climate, in the environment, which could also lead to the source to sea, biodiversity, climate and disaster risk reduction. So there are lots of things, which one institute, which one nation can start with. So as in the previous youth speakers also mentioned sharing best practices, collaborations in the research development side, except the capacity building, but where one point I want to contribute here would be with the trans-boundary water management. This has been a huge debate and a barrier to lots of developing countries in the global south, which is creating a lot of trouble for the nation's economy, managing a good water source in the nation for lots of agriculture, et cetera, et cetera. It's very important to have a trans-border water management where there are countries who share lots of their boundaries with big nations and the nations, which are usually rich in water resource, et cetera, et cetera. The second aspect, which is very important for every nation and institute is finding the financial and the right technical support. So that could be minimized or provided by a lot of international corporations, where I feel all the countries should start dedicatedly working on the agreements related to water support, where they can build their capacity, where they can help technical with the strengths that a particular country hold in the specific focus area, et cetera, et cetera. They can start also implementing, helping the implementation side of water infrastructure project, et cetera, et cetera. The third part, which I feel is very important again, is policy harmonization and standards. I believe all the nations should come to an agreement where they should create like a guidelines or like a standards where institutes should follow the particular guidelines, the private sector, the other entities which are directly or indirectly involved in the water focus areas, et cetera, et cetera. It's very important to have such guidelines because a lot of frameworks are dependable on such guidelines, which can help us catalyze and catalyze the process of developing and in the climate resilience area. I think these are some of the crucial points which I would like to highlight here in this out of my experience. And that's it. I think that's this. Yeah. That's all right. We could hear you now, Yang, but for the next team, I would like to invite Enique for briefing us on the team four. So, what was yours? Thank you so much, Dr. Puri. Hello, everyone. Hello, all the Asians and the Pacific dwellers. It's so heartening to see all of you together and finally discussing something that's really important, water for cooperation. I mean, we do know what cooperation means and we do really need a great deal of cooperation among ourselves when we're talking about water and especially the trans boundary resources. And when we hear about cooperation, the first thing that we would think about would be trans boundary resources and that is one of the most surface agenda that was discussed in the interactive dialogue for that was about the trans boundary and the political cooperation and the international trans boundary cooperation. We know the example that's on our fingertips being in Asia and the Pacific and then the national trans boundary cooperation. We have this commission and going on all of all at our places in our parliaments but there is more to that and that is very important to talk about. That is the social cooperation, the scientific cooperation, the commercial or financial cooperation or the interspecies cooperation. And these are something that opened my mind a lot when I attended the special events related to ID4. So apart from the trans boundary cooperation in which we are investing a lot of our debates and dialogues and energy discussing who should retreat and who should be the king of the river. Let's talk about who is given the right to access. Are we asking the indigenous owners before taking their resources or we are just putting a plant over there and mineralizing their already mineral rich water or is the data available for the indigenous people or are we looking into the intergenerational gap? Are we learning from the people who owned the lakes back 10 years ago, 20 years ago? Being resourceful is good but are we responsibly resourceful? That's the question. And then finally, we have to find equality and fund disbursements. It might be that we have a lot of water resources but the amount of hardships that we are getting might delay the disbursement of the funds and the actual characterization of the funds and materializing things. Now moving on to some dialogues from the special event. Can we move on to the next slide? Okay, so one overarching theme that everyone had to learn was water is life. But let's put it this way, what is water if not life? And that is something that I got to learn there that Wash really does carry a very crucial role as Dr. Suditi said. Similarly, there is a huge importance of bringing indigenous people. We should not be putting the folklore on our back end just because we have some couple of research papers in our hands. Those folk loads are actually telling a lot about water. They're telling the memory that the water has gained throughout the decades. So we need to sit and talk to indigenous people and ask them and not say to them what they have to do. Instead we should be asking them what we should do and ask them to shape our future plans. Finally, the self-marketing was a very low hanging fruit that every nation who was abundantly dependent on water resources that it did not even manage would market themselves as a very water efficient economy. But on the other hand, it's not all about self-marketing. It helped us to reach at the place where you are currently at. So we need an action plan. And finally, when it comes to money, the youth had a great demand of being the in charge of the future and being co-gardians of everything is starting from the funds out into the ground and field level. So and finally, in order to solve basins, we first have to solve lakes. And that is what cooperation summed up to me when I was at the UN Water Conference. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was a very quick and crisp summary of the team. And yes, we have to go back to indigenous people to help us out, realize how we can shape our future back then. For the last team, I would like to invite Krithika Ayershivkumar to brief us about the water action decade. Hello everyone. It's good evening to everyone present across multiple parts of the world. And my fellow colleagues and fellows have spoke really well. And I was, you know, we're about hearing for the fifth team, the water action decade. And it gave a huge insight towards the overall complete perspective of, you know, characterizing water into the five themes. So it is principally agreeable that water is both a victim of climate change and also a cause of the climate change. So through this, it was evident that we had some key challenges. Like what is the pricing of water if it is very close to the true value and are the women and girls are, how are the women and girls affected and are they affected disproportionately by the water and the lack of it? Are the indigenous communities, you know, as Anik rightly said, we should talk to them and not say to them, which is critically highlighted in here as well. And most important of all, we need to have a developer multilateral action-oriented partnership among multiple stakeholder bodies to have a clear action plan towards saving the water. Most important of all, one of the actions which was agreed upon was having an envoy for the water. So in the conference, it was, and of course in the closing, it was openly agreed upon that there's going to be a dedicated envoy for human water and this person is responsible for checking the action plans of initiatives that were taken and ideally by 20, 20, 60 are looking at having another follow-up session. So here in my complete personal perspective, I mean, I feel that coming together of the organizations, NGOs, political representations and other bodies in the interactive dialogue five, that is the decade of water action decade, pave way for more visible and action-oriented solutions towards addressing the water challenges. The geopolitical uncertainties is pushing the water to the growth boundaries and it's pushing many years behind. So the interactive dialogue also proposed the envoy, as I said, and we strongly believe that the envoy is going to act as a link or bridge between multiple bodies to develop a well-defined framework on pricing of the water. So in this situation, the pricing of water is one of the critically-needed solution to make sure that water is available in a very equitable manner to multiple stakeholder groups. Some of the key recommendations were like the science and evidence from the indigenous communities. There is a very critical lack of wash-related access and it is again not any equitable. And we are looking at having a more systematic, frequented gathering and more clear targets and indicators for having a stronger accountability. So, yes, maybe you can please move to the next slide. Yeah, so water economics is one of the mostly required and highly important focus area that requires a lot of attention here to solve all these critical water challenges. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kriti. And thank you to all our young water professional speakers for sharing their insights and summaries of the UN Water Conference. We know those were quick, but we'll have time to flesh them out later, especially during the breakout discussions. I would now like to proceed to the introduction of our panelists. In... One by one before we enter into an audience Q&A. Our first analyst is Mafalda Pinto, who is a water and sanitation specialist young professional water and urban development sector office sectors group at the Asian Development Bank. Mafalda is a civil engineer with special interests in water, fecal sludge management and circular economy. And she holds an MSI in civil engineering from Institute of Superior Technical University of Lisbon. And is a chartered engineer with... Hi, sorry. Your connection was a bit choppy. Hello, it's okay. Hi. I'm so sorry. That's entirely on me and I apologize. No worries. Okay. I hope this is better now. But I wanted to start off in the UN Water Conference. What are the entry points or opportunities for greater or more meaningful youth engagement in the next five years? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Yang. Yeah. So I think that we all, I mean, we all know that in the last few years there has been, the youth has been such an important actor into bringing climate change into the public space and we hear all about it. And I think it's the young activists are some of the ones that are really to thank for that. And it's very inspiring to see all that participation. So I think we need a lot of that. We need a lot of youth coming forward. But we also see that there's a lot of institutions that are kind of keep now understanding the potential that involving youth has. So events like this play a very important role and thank you for organizing it. And I think another entry point is that as I was saying, the institutions are now bringing, having more and more programs that involve youth and they're evolving and being more innovative about it and more inclusive. So that's one point that it's just for people to become aware of these. And then just for instance, just bringing an example of ADB, we're preparing a short publication that actually aims to mainstream good examples of youth engagement that have been done in the water sector. But and this goes beyond only youth participating in the implementation but also helping on the conceptualization and design of this project. But one thing that I had Erica mention in her opening remarks is I think these efforts should not only be of making youth aware of these programs, which is a environment. So this is a really great opportunity to attract youth more into the water sector and start bringing that change from within. So I think these are my what I see in the next five years. Thank you so much, Mafalda, for those comments and we'll certainly flesh them out later on. I'd like to now call on next our second panelist, Dr. Madeleine Hartley, who is in a multi-award winning water lawyer with over 10 years experience in the water sector spanning academia, private and in-house legal practice, policy, regulatory strategy and government relations, including as an expert advisor to the former New South Wales Water Minister. Madeleine is passionate about fostering youth participation and greater diversity in the water sector and helping achieve global water equity. Good afternoon. Good evening, Madeleine. Good evening. Hello, I hope you can hear me. I'm having some internet struggles also. I'd firstly like to acknowledge that I'm joining today from the land of the Camaragel people of the Aurora Nation and pay my respects to our First Nations leaders past, present and emerging. Thank you very much, Madeleine. Now, having heard from our speakers before, in your opinion, what do you think is the legacy or impact of the UN Water Conference? And do you think it made any difference with how we are? Yes. Can you still hear me? I really am struggling over here. Kirby, I can see you. So if you can nod, then I can nod. Thank you. Yeah, it's such a great question because I think that there are so many elements to consider. And like everyone has said, it was such an amazing opportunity to be at the table with people who like water, know water, work in water and also come from really different backgrounds and see that diversity represented at the world stage. But if we're talking about Sustainable Development Goal 6, which is about clean water and sanitation for all, at its core, at its most simple and its most complex, what we're talking about is achieving water equity. And this was really the cornerstone and the point of the UN Water Conference. In 2020, the UN did a health check of progress towards achieving this goal by 2030 and found its progress was severely lacking. And so this really was the initial conception for the conference and an attempt to get things back on track. And the conference was historic in many ways, including that it was the first time in nearly 50 years that we saw water take world stage at the UN and it was brought together by and in between COP 27 and COP 28, which are really fundamental moments in time for where water and climate change action are being considered. So finally, we're realizing or we already knew this because we're in the water sector, but the international community is realizing that the really important nexus between water and climate change. So there was recognition that we need to embed indigenous traditional knowledge, like has been said, and science into water resources management, which is such a critical opportunity for moving the space forward and achieving water equity in all communities across the world. As it brings into play different moments and different understandings in the background and the relationship between people and their water sources. And the fact that there's now a special envoy for water both at the UN level and also many domestic country levels is really critical to achieving water equity. And all of this is great outcomes from the UN water conference. But we also have a few less great outcomes or maybe not outcomes of the conference, but in terms of how we're progressing towards achieving that sustainable development goal six. So there's general agreement that the sustainable development goals in general won't be met if this one fails. And so there's that interconnectedness between each of them. And when COP 27 finally put water on the global agenda for climate change, it also finally recognized that, but really late in the game when we're talking about achieving these goals by 2030. We know that worldwide the effects of climate change and water resources will impact people and communities really differently. There'll be too much water, too little water, create massive infrastructure challenges and also investment challenges both in preparedness and disaster response and ultimately huge financial impacts and burdens on the global community and localized communities. So are we on track? It depends what we're trying to achieve. We may not be on track to achieve the outcome and goals as initially construed by the sustainable development goal six, but we are achieving practical outcomes. And I think that's a really critical point. The focus away from communities to the owners on communities and towards multinational corporations and governments to take charge in these fights, reconstructing financial investment in infrastructure, using data and technology to create early warning networks and also monitor surface water impacts of multinational corporations on vulnerable communities, water supplies. These are really good outcomes from the UN Water Conference that achieve or go to achieving that goal. And finally, I just say to the young leaders on this webinar, the future is yours to continue to push to achieve this goal and hold your elders in the water sector to account and the political space and change both the nature of the conversation and the timeframe of the outcomes because they can be achieved when they need to achieve water equity and we should really be pushing towards achieving these goals if not by 2030 and shortly thereafter. Thanks very much, Dr. Hartley. And that note asking about accountability, I'd like to call on next Dr. Vidisha Banerjee, an associate professor and deputy director at Amity Institute of Public Policy, Amity University in Noida, India. She's the editor of two books, Universities as Living Labs of Sustainability in 2022 and Reimagining Sustainable Futures, the SDG Framework in 2019. She has a PhD and MFIL in Public Policy and Public Administration from George Washington University. Good afternoon, Dr. Banerjee. And thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Yang. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever whichever part of the world you're in. You know, as I was hearing the discussion here, something struck me which was, you know, we talk about safe water cities, water safe cities. I'll tell you something very interesting what's happening around me. I'm based in Delhi right now. Delhi is facing a flood-like situation. A month back, we were facing severe water shortages. And these two problems are taking place within a span of a month, water severe, water shortage and flood situations. On both ends, people are losing lives. We are losing our precious fauna and flora. But more importantly, we don't learn our lessons. So this massive water which we have received, we have no way of conserving this because there is no rain harvesting. So we talk about urbanization and I think this is where youth participation is very important, you know. We need to link up when we talk about development. We talk about urbanization in one silo. We talk about shortages of water in another silo. We talk about construction in another silo. We talk about sustainable development in another silo. And we talk about, you know, flood relief in another silo. All these are linked. When you live in a city which 30 years back was more forest than concrete and you come back to the city, which I did, you know, after spending two decades outside and I realized the city is more concrete than forests and gardens, you have these floods coming. This water could have been used for the months when we don't get enough water but there is no plan. And even if there is a plan, there is very little which is done to follow up on it. And I think the youth of today needs as the water action agenda has highlighted, you know, multi-stakeholder engagement. So our government, but also the private sector, the civil society, the educational institutions, the academicians, the experts, everyone needs to pool in. Because without every stakeholder doing their bit, we will not be able to get the kind of participation and the kind of concerted effort we require to solve this water problem. So suddenly in these months, you find that there are fires in Europe and there are floods in India. Who would have thought? I mean, obviously, you know, water has a very big role to play but how, why and how do we synchronize the relief action and what is happening? I think we need to ponder more but also after this pondering, after we come to certain conclusions, how do we operationalize it so that we can solve some of the problems bit by bit? Another thing I want to really highlight here is that increasingly, at least in India, we find there is a feminization of agriculture which means that as male members of the households are moving away from the villages, from the rural areas, in search of jobs and better economic opportunities, it's the women who are left back in the agricultural sector. Now any kind of water shortage or floods are going to impact the fields and village life and it has to be taken care of by the women. So besides our traditional way of women, you know, having to take care of the household burden of water supply, cleaning, cooking, washing, et cetera, we now have an additional burden which the women are bearing and we need to bring that into focus because there is not only a gender imbalance when it comes to water, in just in terms of household responsibilities with respect to water, but there is a severe imbalance in gender responsibilities related to water even in the economic sphere, okay? So and India even now is primarily agrarian and we are facing a water shortage and in some areas we are facing huge water influx and it's the women who are going to bear the burden but mind you, it's not just the women but also the marginalized groups. So socially, but also economically, we need to bring these groups back into, you know, when we discuss, when we, you know, devise policy action. That's my initial thoughts for now. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Medisha, for those wonderful insights and we'll definitely have more time to unpack them during the Q&A with the audience. Our final panelist for this afternoon is Dr. Ayantika De Chowdhury. She's a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, India. Her research interests include earth systems modeling, extreme precipitating systems and climate change. She received her doctorate from the University of Pune in 2013 and is now a mentor to doctoral and master students in climate science. Good afternoon, Dr. Chowdhury. Thank you, Dr. Yang. I would like to ask you just your thoughts heard about what we need to accomplish in the next few years. What do you think young people need to prepare themselves for in a career that contributes to sustainable development? See, when we talk of sustainable development, it encompasses the well-being of humanity as well as the planet. So it has interlinks between various areas from science to social science, to economics, to politics, to governance. So it's a very broad area. But first and foremost, I think we need environmental literacy. That is, we need to understand the climate change issues that are ongoing, the environmental issues, the resource depletion that is happening, the energy sources, the biodiversity ecosystems, policies and technologies. Apart from that, I think we need a strong foundation on the STEM fields because earth system is a very complex system. It's a non-linear complex system. So we need to have expertise on programming, data analysis, there's a lot of data around which needs to be focused and needs to be processed to understand these evolving challenges. And also we need to have, you know, when we talk of sustainable development, we need to work on grassroots levels. So we need to have cultural competency. Like we need to understand the culture of a place, we need to understand the values and perspectives. So we need to work together with the people of that region. And in addition to that, I would say we need to have managerial skills because for the innovative solutions, if you want to place the innovative solutions, you need to have a process wherein you need to get the resources, you need to fill the gaps, you need to make the process happen. Also the entrepreneurship because you need to build business models. And in addition to that, you need to have very strong leadership and communication skills. And the leadership, I would say, it would be the framework of like a very ethical framework and also it has to be a social responsibility perspective. And finally I would say that this sustainable development is a very evolving process and it is changing very fast with climate change and environmental issues. So we need to embrace this lifelong learning process and adaptability. So we need to continuously upgrade ourselves. We need to continuously embrace the new technologies that are open out in the world. And we need to adapt and we need to put it in place for sustainable development. Thank you, Dr. Chaudhary. That was a quick overlook of the topics that we decided that we would discuss from our panelists. And we have like 10 minutes for Q&A and I see two questions in the chat box for the panelists. I would start with the one that involves more of youth engagements from the young professionals in the water field. I would keep it open now to take it up by any panelist if they want to and then we can take the discussions from there. And so the question here in the chat box is that what is the future for young water professionals? And how can we leverage the power of youth to driven innovation and innovative solutions that can address current and future issues? I think this is such a fantastic question, such a moment in time for the youth and the young water professionals on this call and beyond. The future for young water professionals, I think, is yours for the making. There's so much in innovation, in technology that wasn't around in the time of the people who are now edging towards retirement. I've just had the privilege of traveling the world seven months talking to water professionals young and old around the world, including at the UN Water Conference and something that I heard over and over again was how nervous the sector is that the aging population is fast approaching retirement and my father was saying this just before we started the call, it's a real concern. And so there is this gap, a knowledge gap that creates an opportunity for young professionals to come in and to take charge and to lead from more junior positions. And I think there's an appetite in the business world and also the water sector internationally to let the young people take charge and lead from more junior positions in a way that hasn't happened in previous decades. And I really see that in the departments and businesses I work for and in that opportunity is something that they're willing to entertain in a way they haven't previously. And I'd say also that the innovation and the technology is something we haven't previously benefited from. And now there's a huge potential to help drive equity and water equity and more than sustainable development goals. But it's a shaving real solutions. Thank you, Dr. Banerjee. You have any words on that? And then I can go to Oumar Proudha and Shah. Yeah, I think it's a great question and thank you Madhulain for your inputs on this. You know, one thing that I think the youth can contribute which I think the best place in today's world is harnessing digital technology. And you know, we are constantly hearing about artificial intelligence and it's the youth which is at the cutting edge of all this and how do you harness what knowledge, what capabilities the digital world can provide so that we can enable ourselves to tackle the water crisis that the world faces better is something that we can think about. It's one of those areas which we haven't dealt with. You know, till now a lot of these discussions, I am an academic, so a lot of these discussions on what LGBT can do for education. How does it, you know, hinder harm, et cetera, your assessments, what about the things that really will matter to the world, water, environment? Why aren't we interested in linking up these new technologies, this new intelligence that we have, you know, the predictive modeling that we now have, the powers of that and the ability to connect people. You know, we talk about social media as if it is for something else. Right now, look at this group. We all are there talking about the International Water Conference. Most of us haven't been there but we are able to come together on this platform. Why not make it a bigger platform? Why not have more people, more stakeholders talking about it? This is something that the youth is really good at doing. They do it all the time. Why not for this purpose also? So, I mean, that's my thought on this. Thank you. Yes, I understand the thing that you're trying to mention. It's very well put. How about that? Would you like to go ahead? Yeah, I mean, I guess it's kind of bringing what Madeleine and Bidisha have mentioned. It's one thing that I see and it's just a constant talk and here at ADB is the digitalization of water entities and how can we go about it? And as we know, younger people tend to have a better, just a more natural ease of dealing with the new technologies. So, I think it is a time to harness that and bring it on and like where you're hearing the use of AI for designing water treatment plants and all of this kind of stuff that when I was studying, never even dream. So, I think it is a big moment to capitalize on being techies and knowing technology well, use it just because that's gonna be and push for people to ask for it, kind of. Don't be afraid of bringing that idea forward. Thank you. Thank you, Affili. But the floor is already built such a way that we have Dr. Antika with us who's working on the modeling system. So, what do you say about what is the future and how do you can solve the issues of current and future? Go ahead. Yeah, I would also agree with Dr. Bidisha, Affili and Madeleine. So, basically at present, we are at a junction where we are using, we can use the data that is lying all around the world and get solutions from that data using the technology of using AI deep learning. So, we need to build this models around these water issues and get the predictive understanding of the system to get the solutions of the system from the, there's a lot of data lying around. We need to use this data. So, all the panelists are agreeing to one fact that needs to be more focused on the data analytics and should be more aware of the newer technologies. Yes, we have a few more questions from the audience today. I would be going with the one question that we have just received from Alejandro. The question is, what limitation presents the actual political context on the prioritization on environmental related policies? I'm afraid that we don't have a lot of time but we have three more questions. So, someone wants to quickly go and address it. The question again is, what limitations presents at the actual political context on the prioritization of environmental related policies? Yeah, Bidisha, go ahead. So, I'll take this question. So, coming from the global south, I think how you define development make a lot of difference in development is seen traditionally in the context of buildings and factories and big ships and big airplanes, which right now is what the dominant outlook towards development is, at least in the global south, you would have a conflict with the environment. So, I think there needs to be some kind of a realignment, a redefinition of what development means. Development, the environment doesn't mean less resources. It just means using resources judiciously and equitably. So, I think that is the political context which is the limitation and it is not something that can change in a jiffy and let's not fool ourselves. All of us are plagued by this definition, playing in our minds. So, we need to work over time, but step by step at every level, all stakeholders included to look at environment as a stakeholder. So, whenever we talk about stakeholders, we don't even consider the environment as one just because it's mute. So, once we do that, we realize that it's not something, the political context itself will change, but probably it will be much, much later before that we ourselves need to change the way we look at development and growth. Yes, we are probably looking for a mindset shift, which is a longer process than the context changing. So, yeah, the next question is from, so the question is, how can we ensure that youth voices are heard and taken seriously in water-related decision-making process? I think everybody who is attending this particular session would have this question because we know we are aware and we are part, but when it comes to decision-making process, it becomes sometimes, we would not know the way to how to influence the decision-making, but when you visit you and then you know that what all is going on, you will want to make sure that your voices are heard. So, please, panelists, who would want to go ahead with this question? I can just start, but I won't talk too long. I just want to say two very practical things. The first really practical thing is that in your organization, there are leaders who are looking for you, who want to be your ally and who want to bring your voices to the tables that you may not yet be able to sit at, but they sit at and they want fresh ideas. So, look in your businesses for those opportunities, for those allies, align yourself with them, and things like this, the Young Professionals Network is such a critical opportunity. All of the conversations around the UN, what a conference are engaging the youth and bringing those voices to decision-makers, regardless of whether or not it's your group sitting at the table. So that's the first really practical thing. And the second practical thing from my experience as a ministerial advisor is that the realm of influence and the sphere of influence we each have is at micro levels that we may not even realize. So having those conversations with our friends, with our families, changing the perception of how people interact with their water resources, what climate change means in a water, a scarce future, and the changes and the impacts to climate and hydrological uncertainty in that future with the opportunities and the challenges and the solutions that you have and that you know about, bringing those to your circles of influence can really then have an impact direct to the decision-making table too. So don't discount the ability you can have even just talking to your own friends and family. Well, that's very nicely said. And apart from this particular group, but also part of the global youth coalition and there's this particular activity that we keep on doing and we involve our relatives or family members or friends just to, when you talk with them, there is a world spread and then there would be next. And so that network keeps on building that's very first thing and about the work spaces. Yes, you're really right about that too. Anyone else want to add something to that? The question again was that how the youth voices can be heard and for the decision-making in specific? I think adding to what Madeline was saying is also trying to, it is a bit always hard to where do you even look for but try to keep up to date on, as I was saying, there might be calls, there might be youth organizations that are going on and calls for participation on activities and just knowing that they exist, if you can't make it, maybe friends can make it to them. And I always think an important thing that comes from speaking with friends is that I think people, when if you're a bit younger, you think you're not going to be taken seriously or you might not have the confidence to come forward with ideas and talking with friends and sometimes hearing them say stuff makes you feel that you can also say, so yeah, just keeping conversations around your own ideas and plans for environmental issues or water policies, it can help just talk about a trash it out and that you also get more used to talking about it and makes you take it more seriously, easily, easier, I guess. That really makes sense. So we're approaching the end of time for Q&A sessions, actually we have been on five minutes of the time a lot. We still have a couple of questions left in the chat box. Maybe we can take it later in the final wrapping up session. I would like to thank each panelist here for having the sparing the time and you can interact more with all the participants in the breakout rooms with the moderators that we have ready for. So, Yank, do you have a word to say? No, thank you so much to all our panelists for sharing their insights. I think your interest is still lacking, so. First thought, which is the breakout rooms, which Isabella has kindly arranged for us and we'd be happy for each of our panelists to be joining those discussion. Oh no, Isabella can go ahead with the breakout now. Welcome back to the plenary and our sincere apologies. We know that wasn't nearly enough time to really dig deep into the points made throughout this wonderful discussion, but I would like to ask each of the rooms, if they have a volunteer for sharing back in a minute or under, the key points that I talked about. Otherwise, I will have to ask the moderator of that room to please share back their key points. Starting with room one, the room with Jay as the moderator. Do we have a volumetric? Would you like to go ahead with the key points? Please go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Jay and I, we were discussing about what would it mean for incentivizing, what will it take for to incentivize the lower bureaucratic levels in the Indian government to think more about water and to think about ways to help them understand and hopefully later solve the water problem. And in that context, we talked about the various incentives that can be put in place. Like one is monetary incentive, which I think is the hardest in the Indian government system. But the other is, you know, points that can be collected, which can go towards maybe getting some kind of rebate on your kids' education, maybe in the ration that the government gives you, or maybe it adds up to increment, maybe you kind of fast-track to the increment, you know, time period, or maybe, you know, it goes towards your profit and fund. So, because at the end of the day, you know, the environment is something that all of us here in this forum understand and agree. But we need to transcend this forum and reach out and make them stakeholders. Not to do that, we have to give them some carrot. So in the beginning, and you know, what are those that we can provide? Once they're on board, once they realize that they are in it for themselves and their future, it's a different conversation. But till that happens, we need to bring in an incentive structure that is attractive for every level of the government as well. Interesting, talking incentives. Thank you very much for our moderators on room one. Room two, we had Kriti together with Mafalda, I believe. Do we have a volunteer from room two? Share back any of the key points you spoke about. Otherwise, it falls on Kriti or Mafalda to reflect. Yes, Yang. So there were a little bit of questions about how the current, future generation be part of UN Water Conference. But to be honest, we were a little bit, for a couple of minutes, we were quite confused on what to talk about. But then, yeah, so then there were questions about how to be part of the water conference and about the water and nexus expertise. Apparently in the group, there were not much of water and nexus expertise here. So in that sense, I'm just putting it here. So if there's someone, there's a question for you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kriti. I take that confusion as a good sign. There's too much to talk about. There's too many opportunities and starting points. Thank you very much. Let's move on to room three, I believe, with Anik and Madeline. Yeah. Okay. So our room was kind of very dormant in the beginning, but thanks to Madeline, her experience that she brought with this, it is always a good space to talk about politics and legality, then you have an experienced person with you. So we started off with a very tricky question in order to solve the crisis that most of the South Asians face. That is the Transboundary Water Resources. Nearly every country in South Asia shares a basin with another country. And when we are talking about the digitalization of water resources, we need to put in some sensors, we need to put in some flow meters to get the data back. How is the political and the legal landscape going to govern the ownership that the youth has planned in those basins? And that was very well defined that politics may accelerate, but for the timing it hinders and we have to take a bottom-up approach and start with micro-level instances. And she gave examples of Australia in USA. And then next we started, we had a question from Kritika about the social activities that we can conduct to motivate young professionals. And that was passed on to Eriko. And she told about the different programs that YPFP takes on board. And of course, reiterated that it is very difficult for the non-english speaker young professionals to speak up. And so we need to make it accessible to the people who know less of the international language. And that's how we ended it up. Thank you so much, Anik. Last but not least, for room four, we had the room with Chelsea and Dr. Chattery. Chelsea or Siddiptee, did you want to summarize the discussions from your room? Hi, yes. So we were discussing basically that how the voices of youth can be heard more in a more amplified manner. We were discussing about the current barriers, of course, that sometimes we feel that voices are all to heard but not to the extent of making them come to the policy making or some more active engagement. So we were just discussing that what can be the opportunities and what needs to be done more in action. Big and sweet, thank you very much, Siddiptee. Dr. Purvi, I'd like to ask you, what was your key takeaway from this entire discussion and session? It's amazing to see the room today. As we all know, there's very less time to summarize a couple of things. But there are two things that are surfacing very clearly. One is that we need more youth participation and active youth participation. And the other thing, technically speaking, we know that we have to engage with it to make some actions. And that one is equitability of water. And the other thing that comes to my notice is that indigenous peoples' rights and women's right and the solution of fluid is something that is surfacing. So I'll take that message home with me. What do you think was the summary for you again? It was exactly the same.