Date and Time: 19th February 15:00- 16:30 (Japan Time)
*You can watch LIVE online. Register for FREE.
Lead organizer: APWF Secretariat c/o Japan Water Forum
Special Cooperation from the UNESCO IHP Asia-Pacific Regional Steering Committee

Title of Special Session
Toward Quality-oriented Societies in Asia through the Actions for Water-related Disasters Risk Reduction and Climate Resilience by All in the River Basins of Asia

[Registration]
Online registration deadline: 15:00 19 February (Sunday), 2023
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_u84otPjlSHCXLYXwrokF6w

Session Overview
Rivers hold the key to climate resilience, but water-related disasters — whether slow-onset or acute events — continue to have devastating impacts on the communities and economies of each river basin. To discuss the issues and accelerate the actions for solutions, 18 Heads of State and Government (HSG) of Asia and the Pacific who participated in the 4th Asia-Pacific Water Summit (APWS) adopted the Kumamoto Declaration. The HSG has reached the collective understanding that we can reduce cascading flood risk and strengthen transboundary cooperation by restoring a sound water cycle. The HSG also determined to improve quality infrastructure development for sustainable, resilient, and inclusive societies by integrating water sector measures’ hard and soft components.

　The objectives of this special event are to examine flood controls in science and technologies, governance, and finance, as part of the follow-up of the Kumamoto Declaration of the 4th APWS. It aims to summarize the challenges and opportunities in Asia to promote river basin management toward disaster resilience and sustainability by all. It also seeks to share the pathways to remove hurdles, innovate solutions, and forge cooperation by sharing the good practices to facilitate the HSG’s informed decision-making toward the UN Water Conference 2023 and the 10^th World Water Forum.

By sharing the cases of each sub-region of Asia, it will discuss: 
・Contribution of science and technologies to address the flood challenges in Asia
・Ways to develop and integrate methods and data sets to better address the complexity of the water cycle and water resource management under changing climate,
・Opportunities, barriers, and resource and technological needs to promote river basin disaster resilience and sustainability by all
・Governance to make use of the best available science and technologies
・Ways to set goal-orientated cooperation to enhance engagement from stakeholders other than the government organizations about river basin management,
・ways to enhance the political wills of government leaders to mobilize and improve resources for data and information, capacity development, and innovation to encourage river basin disaster resilience and sustainability by all.

Provisional Agenda

15:00-15:02	Session overview: Ms. Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager, JWF
15:02-15:06	Opening Remarks: Dr. Kotaro Takemura, JWF Secretary-General
15:06- 15:17	Keynote presentation Contribution of science and technologies toward the solutions to address flood challenges in Asia (title TBD): Prof. Taikan Oki, Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo　(c/o Advisor to the President of Japan Water Forum)
15:17-15:26	Indonesia’s case Dr. Firdaus Ali, Senior Advisor in Water Resources to the Minister of Public Works and Housing, the Republic of Indonesia
15:26-15:35	Philippine’s’ case Prof. Guillermo Q. Tabios III, Institute of Civil Engineering, University of the Philippines
15:33-15:42	Pakistan’s case : Dr. Hifza Rasheed, Director General, Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, Islamabad, Pakistan
15:42-15:51	Cases of the Republic of Korea Dr. Joo-Heon Lee, Vice-chairperson of IHP-ROK c/o Professor of civil engineering department, Director of drought research center, Joongbu University
15:51-16:00	Flood control investments in Asia Dr. Mikio Ishiwatari, Senior Advisor on Disaster Management and Water Resources Management at Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) c/o Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo c/o Board Director, Japan Water Forum
16:00-16:09	Governance to make use of science for flood control (Title TBD): Dr. Hirotaka Matsuki, Head of Research Group, International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHARM)
16:10-16:28	Panel Discussion, Q&A
16:28-16:30	Wrap up

The output of this event
・The showcases and recommendations of this event will supplement and deepen the discussion of the 4th APWS
・Assist the HSGs and their supporting policymakers in informed decision-making in visualizing the goals and process of the measures towards Water-related Disasters Risk Reduction and Climate Resilience by All in the River Basins with the provision of the concrete measure implemented in various Asia following each country’s development process and their available resources
・it will contribute to the goals of the actions proposed for the theme of interactive dialogue about Water for Climate, Resilience, and Environment, as well as Water for Development, Water for Cooperation, and action proposals for the accelerators of the SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework in terms of data and information, capacity building, innovation, and governance, by designing the session reflecting the themes of the UN Water Conference 2023 and providing the showcases in Asia
・Provide knowledge to the international community involved in the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction about the ways of transformation from risk to resilience toward Sustainable, Resilient, and Inclusive development for quality-oriented societies in Asia

[Registration]
Online registration deadline: 15:00 19 February (Sunday), 2023
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_u84otPjlSHCXLYXwrokF6w

Contact
Ms. Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager, Japan Water Forum c/o APWF Secretariat
6th Fl., 5-4 Nihonbashi-Hakozaki-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo,
103-0015 JAPAN
Tel: +81-(0)3-5645-8040
Email: asayama[at]waterforum.jp
※Please change [at] to @

(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager, Japan Water Forum)