GEEF

1. Background & Rationale

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing series of natural disasters striking East Asia and Southeast Asia, from earthquakes in Japan and Taiwan to volcanic eruptions and floods in Indonesia, to typhoons and landslides in the Philippines. These disasters have brought widespread destruction and highlighted the growing vulnerability of the region.

Meanwhile, the disaster landscape is being shaped equally by man-made and artificial hazards. The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia demonstrates how armed conflict generates humanitarian crises, infrastructure destruction, and health emergencies. Other incidents of gun violence and clashes between armed individuals further illustrate how human-driven disasters present severe risks.

Though most of the disasters are experienced outside Korea’s borders, the consequences of regional seismic disturbances and adverse weather systems, particularly in terms of health, trade, and humanitarian crises, can pose significant risksto the Korean Peninsula.

The particular risks of escalation by North Korea, most especially the CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) threats on the Korean Peninsula, present an essential additionalcomplexity for disaster preparedness and responses. Such risks call for integrated strategies whereby military medical capabilities are combined with multisectoral collaboration.

There are several requirements for disaster management, including the need for robust medical systems as well as disaster response systems. Korea’s capacity to anticipate, absorb, and recover from disasters requires learning from both man-made and natural crises occurring across the region.

Disasters are transnational phenomena. Thus, international collaboration, exchange, and learning are required to overcome such challenges. Korea can benefit from collaboration frameworks established by the regional and international community to improve its preparedness response to the growing spectrum of threats.

2. Session Objectives

• Assess recent disasters in East Asia and Southeast Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and North Korea) and analyze their potential impacts on the Korean Peninsula.

• Examines Korea’s current disaster-preparedness and response systems, including health, medical infrastructure, military medical capabilities, and emergency management capacities.

• Explore how geopolitical dynamics, including the war in Ukraine and Russia, armed violence, and inter-Korean tensions, influence disaster response and preparedness efforts.

• Highlight the role of international cooperation and multisectoral collaboration in strengthening Korea’s disaster management frameworks, particularly in addressing CBRN threats.

• Develop actionable recommendations for collaborative strategies that enhance regional resilience and coordinated response mechanisms.

3. Potential Outcomes and Future Directions 

Through this session, we suggest 3 practical actions that universities, policymakers, or institutions can take to promote sustainable development.

   1) Universities

At the University level, disaster preparedness should be strengthened through sustained education and research engagement. Universities can serve as critical hubs for generating interdisciplinary research on related topics such as armed conflict and CBRN-related risks, while embedding disaster risk reduction and health security into academic curricula. By encouraging students and faculty to participate in community-based research, simulations, and regional case analyses, universities can raise awareness of transnational disaster risks and cultivate future professionals equipped to contribute to sustainable development and long-term resilience in the field. 

   2) Policy makers

For policymakers, this session provides a platform to exchange perspectives with regional and international counterparts and to translate shared knowledge into concrete policy action. Through such dialogue, policymakers can design evidence-based strategies that enhance disaster preparedness, strengthen health systems, and improve early warning and response mechanisms. Importantly, aligning disaster risk reduction policies with sustainable development goals allows governments to build resilience at the community level while addressing vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change, conflict, and geopolitical instability.

   3) Institutions

Institutions, including public agencies, medical systems, research centers, and NGOs, play a central role in operationalizing disaster preparedness through collaboration. By engaging in multisectoral and international partnerships, institutions can share resources, technical expertise, and best practices, particularly in complex scenarios involving man-made and CBRN threats. Joint training programs, coordinated response frameworks, and continuous information exchange could be expected, which enable institutions to move beyond isolated preparedness efforts toward an integrated and sustainable disaster response system.

1. Background & Rationale

The accelerating climate crisis is unfolding alongside unprecedented technological advancement. This dual reality presents a paradox: while industrialization, data-driven economies, and energy-intensive digital infrastructures have contributed to ecological degradation, emerging technologies also hold transformative potential for mitigation, adaptation, and environmental restoration. Artificial intelligence, renewable energy systems, climate modeling tools, and biotechnology may serve as powerful instruments for planetary resilience—yet only if governed by ethical norms, inclusive governance, and a clear commitment to justice.

As global communities face widening inequalities, ecological vulnerability, and uneven technological access, purely technical solutions are insufficient. Effective climate action requires a shift toward ethical transition—a reframing of technology not merely as an instrument of efficiency or economic growth, but as part of a moral, ecological, and relational framework. This session proposes a multidimensional exploration of how technological innovation can be aligned with climate justice, planet-centered ethics, and sustainable global solidarity.

   1) Dual Impact of Technology

Technology contributes both to the intensification of the climate emergency (e.g., resource extraction, energy consumption, ecological risks) and to potential solutions (e.g., emissions reduction, monitoring, adaptation tools).

   2) Ethical Transition

Technological development must move from human-centered paradigms toward life-centered, planet-centered, and justice-oriented frameworks that consider long-term ecological impacts and intergenerational responsibility.

  3) Climate Justice and Technology Justice

Emerging technologies must be evaluated through the lenses of equity, vulnerability, access, and power distribution. This includes the experiences of the Global South, marginalized communities, climate migrants, and future generations.

  4) Interdisciplinary Ethical Imagination

The session emphasizes the importance of integrating environmental ethics, public policy, spirituality, and community-based knowledge to reimagine the relationship between technology and ecological well-being.

  5) Global Solidarity and Shared Governance

Technological responses to the climate crisis require cooperative international frameworks that support inclusive decision-making, fair technology transfer, and the empowerment of vulnerable populations.

The session invites interdisciplinary perspectives—scientific, ethical, policy-oriented, and spiritual—to examine how emerging technologies might be mobilized responsibly and equitably. Rather than assuming that innovation alone will secure a sustainable future, the discussion seeks to identify the values, governance models, and collective commitments needed to ensure that technology becomes a catalyst for planetary hope rather than a driver of further harm.

2. Session Objectives

• Critically assess the dual impact of emerging technologies—their contributions to both the intensification of the climate crisis and the potential for ecological restoration—while evaluating their social, environmental, and ethical implications.
• Identify and articulate the ethical principles, governance frameworks, and responsible innovation norms needed to guide the development, deployment, and regulation of climate-related technologies in ways that protect life and planetary well-being.
• Explore interdisciplinary perspectives—including ethical, scientific, policy-oriented, and spiritual insights—to propose holistic approaches for integrating technology with ecological resilience, life protection, and climate justice.
• Highlight strategies for equitable and sustainable global cooperation by examining pathways that use technology to reduce inequality, support vulnerable communities, ensure fair access to climate solutions, and foster cross-sector partnerships and actionable guidance for policymakers, civil society, and academic institutions.

3. Potential Outcomes and Future Directions 

Through this session, we suggest 3 practical actions that universities, policymakers, or institutions can take to promote sustainable development.

   1) Universities

Universities and public institutions should institutionalize ethical and climate-centered technology governance frameworks that integrate environmental ethics, social equity, and long-term ecological responsibility into research, funding, and policy decisions.

   2) Policy makers

Policymakers and institutions must invest in equitable access and capacity-building for vulnerable and marginalized communities by supporting inclusive technology transfer, community-based climate initiatives, and participatory decision-making structures.

   3) Institutions

Universities, governments, and civil society organizations should strengthen cross-sector and transnational collaboration to promote responsible innovation, shared governance, and coordinated climate action aligned with sustainable development goals

1. Background & Rationale

Humanitarian and emergency response in the context of fragile states must incorporate measures to build climate resilience in communities that are most exposed to escalating risk and vulnerability. Medair will present practical examples in which humanitarian responses can contribute towards climate resilience building.

Medair is an Christian International Humanitarian Organization specialized in providing emergency response, relief and recovery assistance through primary health care, mental health and psychosocial support, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene, shelter and infrastructure provision in hard-to-reach areas impacted by diseases, disasters and conflict. We focus on the most vulnerable communities globally and the most urgent life saving needs so people can live with dignity and hope, but we are also very concerned about contributing to sustainable solutions.

Medair’s works already span several of the SDGs focusing mainly on SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and indirect actions on SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), and SDG 5 (Gender Equality). Additionally, in this session, we discuss the direct link with SDG 13 (Climate Action) and the impact of climate on humanitarian needs for the most vulnerable. 

Climate Risks and impacts are disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable in the most undeveloped and fragile states. This is why Medair cares about climate action. 

Not only does climate change add new shocks to already fragile systems and eroded coping capabilities that increases number of people tipped into acute crisis levels, but climate change also drives displacement and loss of livelihoods, worsens food security, exacerbates disease threats (outbreaks, new emerging diseases, shifting disease areas), and contributes to recurrent cycles of water scarcity and flooding. Medair takes climate seriously and takes action by ensuring that they are informed and monitoring climate risks to develop the most effective programmes.

Those who are the most vulnerable suffer the most while receiving least support for climate resilience. There are lots that can be done towards SDGs in these complex and fragile settings where supports are needed the most.

2. Session Objectives

In this session, the speaker will make a case for the need to integrate climate resilience into humanitarian and emergency response in fragile states, particularly as climate-related shocks increasingly exacerbate risk and vulnerability among the world’s most marginalized communities. Emphasizing the disproportionate impact of climate change on fragile and conflict-affected contexts, the session aims to demonstrate how humanitarian action can move beyond short-term relief to contribute to more sustainable and resilient outcomes, aligned with global commitments to sustainable development.

Through a series of practical humanitarian response examples, the session will explore how climate risks—such as displacement, food insecurity, disease outbreaks, and recurrent water scarcity and flooding—intensify humanitarian needs, and how these challenges can be addressed through 3 “themes”/categories of contribution Medair makes towards building resilience to climate risks: preparedness and contingency planning, anticipatory action and disaster risk reduction, and “build back better” approaches. 

Drawing on case studies from Medair’s field experience in countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Madagascar, Ukraine, and Sudan, the discussion will illustrate how humanitarian programmes can remain responsive while strengthening communities’ capacity to cope with future climate impacts.

The session will also highlight the linkages between humanitarian response, climate action, and the Sustainable Development Goals, with particular focus on SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), as well as indirect contributions to SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 5 (Gender Equality), and 13 (Climate Action).

3. Potential Outcomes and Future Directions 

Through this session, we suggest 3 practical actions that universities, policymakers, or institutions can take to promote sustainable development.

   1) Universities

Universities can contribute by acting as connectors, knowledge hubs, and neutral conveners within an evolving space of international cooperation, where traditional approaches and siloes between humanitarian action, climate response, and development are increasingly dissolving. By fostering collaboration with humanitarian organizations, expert NGOs, and the private sector, universities can help advance broader climate coalitions that provide holistic support to vulnerable communities. Such coalitions can address acute climate impacts while also supporting long-term, community-led efforts in public health, livelihood strengthening, and environmental restoration. 

   2) Policy makers

Policymakers play a critical role in enabling climate-focused humanitarian and development action in fragile states, where climate risks are escalating and progress toward the SDGs lags behind. This session calls on policymakers to support policy and funding environments that allow institutional donors and foundations to resource programmes implementing direct climate adaptation programming in these high-risk contexts, rather than remaining overly risk-averse. By prioritizing climate resilience in humanitarian settings, policymakers can help ensure that the most vulnerable populations receive adequate support.

   3) Institutions

Institutions, including donors, foundations, and private-sector actors, are encouraged to take an active role in financing and scaling climate resilience initiatives. The session highlights the importance of climate-focused institutional donors and foundations resourcing adaptation programmes in fragile states, as well as the role of the private sector in investing in social impact schemes, such as Verifiable Impact Assets (VIAs). These approaches can support those working on climate mitigation and resilience-building for the most vulnerable, while reinforcing accountability and measurable impact.

1. Background & Rationale

As the global community enters the post-SDGs era, there is a growing need to reconsider how sustainable development goals are defined and governed. Redirecting the SDGs beyond 2030 requires attention to the structures that determine development priorities in a world increasingly shaped by data and artificial intelligence, which now play a central role in global governance by influencing policy design, resource allocation, and development measurement. However, the Global South, especially Africa, remains underrepresented in the data ecosystems and technological frameworks that inform global decision-making. This exclusion limits the visibility of African contexts and risks reinforcing development agendas that do not adequately reflect local realities.

At the same time, prevailing notions of global solidarity have largely been defined by advanced economies, with limited incorporation of Global South perspectives. In this context, redirecting the SDGs beyond 2030 requires rethinking solidarity as a dialogical process grounded in mutual engagement, co-creation, and inclusive knowledge production. Against this backdrop, the Yonsei University Institute of African Studies, under the honorary leadership of former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, seeks to serve as a platform for such dialogue by introducing its research direction and accumulated expertise, while fostering open discussion on Africa-related issues, emerging technologies, and future pathways for more inclusive development in the post-SDGs era.

2. Session Objectives

In this session, we aim to introduce the research direction and accumulated expertise of the Institute of African Studies and to provide a platform for dialogue on Africa-related challenges, emerging technologies, and collaborative pathways toward a more inclusive post-SDGs framework.

3. Potential Outcomes and Future Directions 

Through this session, we suggest 3 practical actions that universities, policymakers, or institutions can take to promote sustainable development.

   1) Universities

Universities can advance Africa-centered sustainable development by building Africa-focused research networks in collaboration with African universities and research institutions to develop context-specific strategies. They can also operate inclusive academic platforms by hosting conferences, workshops, and online forums that share Global South research findings and perspectives with the international academic community.

   2) Policy makers 

Policy makers can advance Africa-centered sustainable development by establishing policy evaluation systems that leverage regional data and AI to support evidence-based decision-making. Additionally, they can develop post-SDGs policy guidelines that incorporate African realities and the perspectives of the Global South.

    3) Institutions 

Institutions can advance Africa-centered sustainable development by operating collaborative platforms and forums that bring together NGOs, research institutions, and international organizations. They can also enhance data accessibility and sharing by improving transparency and providing access to African-related datasets and technological resources to support research and policymaking. Additionally, institutions can implement innovative technology projects by piloting and scaling AI- and digital-based solutions tailored to regional development needs.