The UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge is a capacity-building initiative that encourages and challenges the future generation, particularly students from different universities and majors/study programs, to offer concepts and ideas for their own take on sustainable water management solutions. The UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge, now in its second year, is being held in two nations—Indonesia and Viet Nam—and has as its focus groundwater. 

The two goals of the UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge 2022: Groundwater are to engage young people and educate them about the value of biosphere ecosystems and sustainable groundwater management; and to develop concepts and ideas for novel ways to increase public awareness of groundwater use in specific locations.

The program was conducted in two phases, from 26 August to 23 September 2022. Phase I was held online from 26 August until 16 September 2022, and Phase II was held offline from 18 – 23 September 2022. The program aimed to enhance the competence of participating students and young professionals throughout the out-of-classroom experience with actual cases on the ground, collaboration, site visits, local experts’ input, and mentorship.

The fifty selected participants from Indonesia and Viet Nam were divided into ten teams. They were challenged to create  solution awareness to solve the current groundwater issues and problems in the selected biosphere, Merapi-Merbabu-Menoreh Biosphere Reserve for Indonesian teams and Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve for Vietnamese teams.