Project
UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge: Youth Action for Water in Southeast Asia (2021–2024)
Project duration: 2021 - 2024
Location: Southeast Asia
Donor: the Government of Japan
Implementing Partner: The Water Agency
Overview
The UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge (UWRC) is a flagship youth engagement initiative reaching across all Southeast Asian countries. It connects young people with UNESCO-designated sites—such as World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves, and UNESCO Global Geoparks—that are facing increasing threats from water scarcity, flooding, and climate-related pressures. Supported by the Government of Japan through the Japanese Funds-in-Trust (JFIT), UWRC empowers young leaders to address these challenges through innovative, community-based solutions.
Each edition of the UWRC (2021–2024) provides youth with the opportunity to learn from experts, engage with local practitioners and communities, and co-develop practical responses to water issues. The program fosters critical thinking, collaboration, and hands-on learning—enabling participants to propose, refine, and pilot their own solutions while serving as powerful advocates for sustainable water management in their countries.
Three Core Pillars
Implementation-Oriented Design, empowering teams to turn innovative ideas into tangible, real-world solutions.
Regional Collaboration, promoting cross-border teamwork to encourage knowledge exchange and mutual learning among youth from different countries.
Digital Innovation, leveraging technology and social media to enhance creativity, broaden outreach, and ensure long-term sustainability of solutions.
Countries and Sites Involved
UWRC brought together teams from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. Example sites where youth projects were implemented include:
Cambodia: Tonlé Sap Biosphere Reserve
Indonesia: Merapi-Merbabu-Menoreh Biosphere Reserve
Malaysia: Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve; Langkawi UNESCO Global Geopark
Philippines: Palawan Biosphere Reserve
Timor-Leste: Nino Konis Santana National Park
Each of these sites is a UNESCO-designated area of high cultural or ecological value. By focusing on such sites, the program reinforces the link between water resilience and the preservation of natural and cultural heritage.
Impact and Outreach
UWRC has achieved broad visibility and strong engagement. In 2023, UWRC attracted more than 560 applications (from 9 countries), demonstrating high interest among students and young professionals in tackling water and climate issues. Selected participants gained awareness of water-climate challenges in heritage sites and sharpened skills such as critical thinking, communication, and project planning. Importantly, youth teams from seven countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Vietnam) were chosen as winners to implement pilot projects, ensuring that innovative solutions continue beyond the UWRC.
2021 – Water Challenge (Indonesia)
Site: Rinjani-Lombok Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO Global Geopark.
Theme: “Water for Food and Live”
Participants: 25 Indonesian youths
Activities: A fully online, six-week capacity-building program for water-related challenges in Sembalun District. Participants were guided by mentors to analyze water issues and the impact of climate change. Focusing on three key themes—Water for food, living and safety—teams used digital tools and virtual mentoring sessions to design actionable concepts.
Results: The winning team presented their project at the 13th Southeast Asian Biosphere Reserves Network (SeaBRnet) meeting in Lombok, Indonesia proposing measures to make Sembalun water-resilient in food, living, and safety by 2030.
2022 – Groundwater Challenge (Indonesia & Vietnam)
Sites: Merapi-Merbabu-Menoreh (Central Java, Indonesia) and Đồn Nai (Vietnam).
Theme: “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible”
Participants: 50 youth from Indonesia and Vietnam
Activities: 3-week online training followed by a 1-week field trip in each country to design awareness campaigns and technical solutions for groundwater management in a hybrid modality. The program combined online workshops and mentoring with on-site visits, allowing participants to interact with local communities and understand real-world water issues. By the program’s end each team pitched innovative ideas (e.g. IoT monitoring, educational games) for sustainable groundwater use.
Results: Winning teams were given the opportunity to present their concepts at a UNESCO regional science meeting, highlighting the role of youth in promoting water resilience.
2023 – Youth Action for Water (Southeast Asia)
Theme: “Youth Action for Water”
Participants: 125 youth from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Activities: Four intensive online training courses and two workshops from a panel of international experts. The curriculum covered theoretical best practices and practical skills (stakeholder engagement, pitching, budgeting, etc.), enabling teams to refine their project concepts. The UWRC invited each team to focus on a local water issue within any UNESCO-designated site in the region. This edition was explicitly designed as a bridge to the 10th World Water Forum (Bali 2024), encouraging young innovators to formulate proposals that could be further piloted.
Results: This edition “empowered youth across nine Southeast Asian countries” to share and develop their own water-security ideas. Key results include:
567 youth applicants across 9 countries; 155 team proposals; 25 teams (5 students each) selected.
High engagement on digital platforms: the AsiaClimateLab site and UNESCO/partner media raised awareness of climate–water issues among thousands regionally.
From this cohort, three teams rose above the rest. Winners AquaCleanse (Cambodia), Make Water OK (Malaysia) and Tim Banyu (Indonesia) were selected to implement their projects in 2024.
2024 – Road to Bali: Implementation Phase
Sites: Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve (Malaysia), Merapi-Merbabu-Menoreh Biosphere Reserve (Indonesia), Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve (Cambodia), Langkawi Geopark (Malaysia), Palawan Biosphere Reserve (Philippines) and Nino Konis Santana National Park (Timor-Leste).
Theme: UWRC 2024 – Road to Bali
Activities: Intensive training and received continuous mentorship – including guidance from four international experts. Through weekly check-ins, field visits and peer exchange (via the AsiaClimateLab online platform), youths refined budgets, forged stakeholder connections, and advanced on-the-ground pilots. The AsiaClimateLab site was the hub for all communications, updates and resource sharing, while teams also maintained their own social media (Instagram/Facebook) to promote progress.
Results: Three top teams (AquaCleanse, Make Water OK, Tim Banyu) traveled to the 10th World Water Forum in Bali, Indonesia. There they presented their projects on stage (Youth Pavilion) and in the UNESCO exhibition area. Across the Forum, all teams’ efforts were highlighted: prototypes and results were displayed at the UNESCO and Youth pavilions, and students engaged with delegates and local communities on-site.
Partners & Support
The UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge has proven that youth can be powerful agents of change when given the tools and platform. To sustain and scale this impact, we invite institutional partners and donors to join us:
Contact:
UNESCO Regional Office in Jakarta
Water and Environmental Sciences
natscience.jak@unesco.org
