At first, this discussion was held as the weekly activities of Kemitraan Habitat Indonesia and Regional Infrastructure Development Agency – Ministry of Public Work and Housing partnership to support the formulation of Urban Development Policies and Strategies in Indonesia, especially for Metropolitan of Mamminasata dan Bimindo in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Since the Covid-19 outbroke, urban health should be a consideration for Urban Development Policies and Strategies in Indonesia. Therefore, we should learn how other cities in the world respond to Covid-19.
We collaborated with UN-Habitat and the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in two cities that practice good examples in Response to Covid-19 which are Singapore and Wellington, New Zealand to organize Webinar Knowledge Sharing on Urban Development: Learning from Cities Around the World in Response to Covid-19 on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020 at 3-5 PM Jakarta Time Zone (GMT+7). This one hundred and thirty-five minutes discussion began with Mr. Bruno Dercon from UN-Habitat sharing about the importance of taking planning for healthy cities and territories into account in the era. It is because the most important asset of any city is the health of its people since every activity such as economy, education, etc. are driven by its people. Soon after, Mr. Hadi from the Regional Infrastructure Development Agency shared about how the Government of Indonesia respond to Covid-19 in terms of Covid-19 response, Mitigation of Economic impact, and New Normal Adaptation in the workspace. The Covid-19 response such as through the construction of New Hospital. The Mitigation of Economic impact such as "Padat Karya". After that, Mr. Didik from the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Singapore shared about how Singapore built integrated planning for each sector such as water, wastewater, spatial planning, the use of technology for mobility tracking, etc. that support Singapore to respond to Covid-19. Last but not least, Mr. Panca from the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Wellington shared how New Zealand stamp out the Covid-19 pandemic though restriction, closing border and lockdown, the stimulus package, and also water management since water becomes more important since we have to clean our hand often. This discussion was run well and full of enthusiasm from around 120 participants.
As a conclusion, The Urban Development Policies and Strategies in Indonesia, especially Metropolitan Mamminasata and Bimindo need to consider urban health and learn how to develop strategies in the pandemic era from Singapore and Wellington, New Zealand such as integrated planning and the use of technology.