YSF 2019: Conference Report

India’s North Eastern Region (NER) is surrounded by five countries – Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar with the transboundary river basin of Ganges-Brahmaputra- Meghna (GBM) covering around 1.7 million square kilometres, impacting over 620 million lives. Lying underneath the mighty Himalayas, a defining feature of the region is the many rivers that intersect the multiple aspects of livelihood, culture, tourism, trade, connectivity and local community development within this region. Given the critical importance of promoting regional cooperation on shared waterways in Eastern South Asia, the Bay of Bengal, extending up to the Indo-Pacific region, the broad contours of consensus which emerged as a possible way forward from the recent initiatives of Asian Confluence is re-imagining river development through multi-faceted regional cooperation and stepped-up connectivity. As rivers are envisioned as a metaphor for connecting lands, people, cultures and tradition spurring growth and trade related activities; special emphasis must be laid on promoting best-practices in order to protect and preserve rivers through conscious and planned endeavours. The scope for bilateral and multilateral exchange, knowledge sharing and dialogues needs to be explored in this regard. The fourth edition of Young Scholar’s Forum (YSF) a flagship Youth initiative of the Asian Confluence, focused on the theme of “Engaging Youth to Re-envision the regional discourse and action on Water and Rivers: for connectivity, tourism, livelihood and climate change adaptation”. The aim of the forum is to provide a platform and network to young scholars from across the region to ideate, debate, cooperate and synergize towards a common vision which they can then further champion. YSF 2019 further had the following sub-themes: • River and coastal connectivity in Eastern South Asia • Rivers as a means of livelihood • Regional Cooperation on Water • Climate Change and rivers • Tourism The Young Scholars Forum 2019 laid a special emphasis on BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) as a regional mechanism to engage beyond borders to unite young minds for a regional vision. BISMTEC as a regional comprises seven Member States: five from South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and two (Myanmar & Thailand) from Southeast Asia. and is a sector-driven cooperative organization— including trade, technology, energy, transport, tourism, fisheries, agriculture, public health, poverty alleviation, counter-terrorism, environment, culture, people to people contact and climate change. YSF 2019 aimed to align with this sector driven approach to ignite young scholarship on finding common narratives to engage on the premise that the region is naturally connected by rivers. YSF 2019 also explored synergies and learning from the experience of the Mekong region.