The COVID-19 Pandemic Forces Every City To Adapt In Public Spaces

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Association of Planning Experts (IAP) of Central Sulawesi Province Wildani Pingkan S. Hamzens said the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic forced every city in Indonesia to continue to be ready to face sudden changes.

"We see that the COVID-19 pandemic requires cities to be better prepared to face sudden changes in the life structure of public spaces that we have not shared access to," said Wildani in the G20 Webinar "A Common Framework: Towards Child-Friendly Cities Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, Climate Crisis, and Rising Structural Inequalities" which was followed online in Jakarta, Monday, March 21.

Wildani said COVID-19 forced everyone, especially children, to work from home. Various children's activities such as learning have to be done online. As a result, the pandemic has forced internet network services throughout the city to be increased evenly and continuously so that every activity can run optimally, including in the event of an emergency.

The pandemic also shows the vulnerability of families, because some families are unable to access the internet network and there are parents who cannot accompany their children to learn. This means that the state has not been able to develop human resources up to the family level.

“The internet must always be safe, so that we can connect and help each other. In certain cities, electrical energy is still a problem, so the online learning process is disrupted,” said the woman who is also an academic at Tadulako University.

Wildani said that there is a structural imbalance in the child data collection service, where there are still parents who have not registered their children with the population or civil registration services because of the pandemic.

Thus, each city is required to carry out an innovation that can provide birth registration services, such as through certain applications, so that parents can immediately register their children.

On the other hand, the number of unplanned pregnancies has made every city aware that providing knowledge and briefing to prospective brides before marriage is an important thing so that every couple can be aware of their responsibilities and give birth to quality children.

"Each city must be able to regularly carry out premarital education or have an obligation to take preparation courses to become parents, so that we will give birth to adult humans with responsibilities towards their children," he said.

Meanwhile, in terms of climate resilience, every city is required to be careful of potential disasters that arise, both floods and earthquakes. In this case, the government must educate the public, especially parents, so that they can teach their children to deal with disasters well.

According to Wildani, actually a city should be a safe space for every child. Utilization of green open space can be used in rotation for the needs of children as well as emergency hospitals and disaster evacuation rooms.

So, we need a system that can handle these changes so that children can go through childhood happily.

"In conditions of limitations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, there should be no structural gaps, the city must focus and innovate to deal with structural inequality," he said.