On May 29, 2020, the 15th Meeting of the High-Level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP) was held virtually under the auspices of H.E. Dr. Han Seung-soo, the HELP Chair, the former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea, and the former President of the UN General Assembly.

The High-Level Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disaster (HELP) was convened in 2007 at the request of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB). Since the outbreak of the new deadly coronavirus, HELP has been actively committed to address the dual challenges of water-related disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. This meeting aimed to bring together leaders and experts from various parts of the world to share their experiences and knowledge of combating water-related disasters under the COVID-19 pandemic.

As an active advisor to HELP, Prof. Gretchen Kalonji, Dean of the Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction (IDMR), Sichuan University, gave an important speech on the Alliance of Alliances (AoA), one of the HELP Flagship Initiatives. She introduced initial activities taken by HELP AoA under COVID-19, including establishing the AoA Secretariat at Sichuan University, enabling youth leadership, and mapping existing alliances and their activities. She emphasized the importance of youth leadership and the interactions between engineering communities and disaster nursing communities in response to the dual challenges.

As an important outcome of the 15th HELP meeting, an instructional document under the title of The Principles to Address Water-related Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) under the COVID-19 Pandemic was approved by the HELP Members. The document was drafted by Prof. Kenzo Hiroki from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), who is also one of the coordinators of HELP. The principles provide practical advice to political leaders, managers of DRR and COVID-19, and all stakeholders on how to prepare and respond to avoid magnified impacts due to co-occurring disasters. Prof. Gretchen Kalonji together with the West China Hospital medical team made key contributions with their frontline experiences in the drafting process of the principles.