Hands on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus - A new approach to support food security and sustainable agriculture in the NENA region
Water, energy and food are essential for human well-being, poverty reduction and sustainable development.
The term ‘nexus’ has been used in a variety of contexts with the aim of advancing the understanding of how sectors are inter-linked, how sector policies impact each other and, in turn, to inform coherent cross-sectoral governance. When resources become scarcer and demand for them increases, developing and implementing sectoral plans independently, without accounting for physical constraints and trade-offs and impacts across sectors, society becomes more vulnerable because spill-over effects across sectoral policies become more expensive and unsustainable. In other words, the interlinkage (or “nexus”) between sectors becomes stronger and this calls for coherent, responsible and consultative planning.
The nexus approach recognizes the inherent connections between water, energy and agricultural management, and the environmental implications of each. These connections have not typically been considered explicitly in water, energy, and agricultural management decision making; thereby increasing the potential for conflicts of interest between sectors relying on the same set of resources as pressure on these grows.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have been working on the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus component of the regional project ‘Implementing the 2030 Agenda for water efficiency, productivity and sustainability in NENA countries’, where this component aims to make visible complex tradeoffs between the natural resource dependencies of energy, food and water systems, and environmental threats including biodiversity loss, climate change and localized air and water pollution. The nexus component has been implemented in Jordan and Morocco, with growing interest from other countries in the project such as Palestine and Tunisia.
In Jordan and Morocco, two Nexus dialogues were held: the First ‘Nexus Dialogue’ - Assessing Water Sustainability using a Water-Food-Energy-Climate-Ecosystems Nexus analytical framework was conducted in Amman in March 2019 and in Souss-Massa in April 2019, followed by the analysis and the development of modeling strategy in consultation with the different Nexus-related potential stakeholders in the country. Whereas the Second ‘Nexus Dialogue’ - Hand on NEXUS analysis in Jordanwas also held inAmman in December 2019 and in Souss-Massa in March 2020, tobuild on the first Nexus workshop and the following consultations with the different Nexus-related potential stakeholders in the country. The main goal of this workshop was to present preliminary nexus model results that illustrate the tradeoffs and potential synergies in developing policies and infrastructure to increase the overall water-energy-food security for Jordan. The workshop engaged key actor groups – experts, resource managers, policy-makers, and stakeholders, involved in the governance of the resources in question – with the results around integrated solutions for sustainable planning in Jordan in the face of critical uncertainties identified in the first Nexus Dialogue. The stakeholders also provided ideas on how to improve the models, and gave feedback about possible new nexus strategies.
Due to COVID-19, nexus activities have slowed down in Jordan, however, two virtual exchanges were organized to discuss in detail the nexus scenarios for agriculture using MABIA model and energy in particular. New partners were brought on board from the Energy Centre from the University of Jordan, the Environment and Climate Change Unit at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) and the Energy Unit at the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ). Virtual meetings were conducted in November 2020 and March 2021 which presented the scenarios developed.
Furthermore, a virtual discussion between nexus stakeholders and water accounting and productivity experts was organized in Morocco and Jordan, with the objective of defining the linkages and proposed scenarios because of COVID-19. The work implemented in the two countries will be improved in the coming months, in particular to introduce recent data and figures and to clarify some definitions. The process will be finalized mid-2021. Other countries in the region under the project including Palestine and Tunisia are showing great interest in the Nexus activity and have been engaged in the physical meetings and virtual exchange that happened during the year so that they can benefit from the lessons learnt from those events.
As part of the regional capacity building on tools and knowledge for supporting sustainable water allocation while managing nexus trade-offs, the project designed a dedicated Water-Energy-Food Nexus webinar series targeting all nexus key stakeholders in the region. This webinar series is being conducted in collaboration with different partners/ institutions working on NEXUS at regional and global levels. The series is presenting concepts, tools and methodologies developed by the project or other nexus programs.
A NEXUS webinar under the title ‘Selected experiences with WEF Nexus decision-making: an application in Morocco’ was held on 27 April 2021 and summarized the experience of stakeholders in Morocco applying the WEF nexus process, as well as the outcomes of the analyses as implemented under the direction of FAO. Participants will have an opportunity to explore the WEF nexus integrated platform. For Jordan, a final webinar under the title ‘The WEF Nexus in the Jordan – Final Results’ will be held on 27 May 2021 to present the results of their quantitative and qualitative analyses across a wide range of scenarios that will be presented for discussion. In addition, the integrated WEF nexus online platform will be shared with all participants so that they can learn to explore and interpret results of the integrated WEF nexus. They will have a chance to explore the platform through a hands-on activity in small groups and will then report back in plenary on their experiences. A regional capacity building training on NEXUS tools will be held on 26 May 2021, which will involve an energy – GIS platform with focus on MABIA and how it links to WEAP.
This project component and webinar series is developed under the regional project, "Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Water Efficiency/Productivity and Water Sustainability in NENA countries" (WEPS-NENA) under the FAO led regional Water Scarcity Initiative (WSI) and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).