Food, land, and water systems underpin the health of societies and the environment, yet they are facing pressure from climate change, population growth, urbanization, and the overexploitation of natural resources. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have the potential to support food, land, and water systems in response to these challenges. This report explores issues of inclusivity and equity of ICTs and how these technologies might be better used to their full potential.

This report presents the results of a scoping study conducted between April and June 2022 in Nepal as part of the CGIAR NEXUS Gains Initiative. The study aims to inform and offer a baseline for the development of a water - energy - food - environment (WEFE) nexus capacity strengthening strategy for the Initiative in Nepal, which will serve as a hub for NEXUS Gains capacity strengthening activities in the sub-region. The study sheds light on the current status of capacities to develop and implement nexus solutions among key Nepali actors in the water, energy, forestry, biodiversity and agriculture sectors, and on the enabling environment for pursuing such integrated solutions. The assessment draws attention to equity and inclusion as critical dimensions of WEFE nexus approaches, and identifies constraints and strategies to strengthen the capacities, leadership, and influence of women WEFE actors.

The paper proposes a probabilistic approach to the assessment of the impacts of multipurpose dams. It is framed around the notion of Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) in the setting of the Water-Energy-Food nexus. The socio-ecological context of the Tana River Basin in Kenya and the construction of two multipurpose dams are used to highlight co-produced positive and negative NCP under alternative river regimes. These regimes produce both damaging floods that ought to be controlled and beneficial floods that ought to be allowed. But the river regime that results from hydropower generation and flood risk reduction may not be the one that is most conducive to food and feed-based NCP. The approach relates the economic value of river-based NCP coproduction to the probability of flooding to derive the expected annual value of NCP and a NCP value-probability curve. The relation between NCP flows and flood characteristics is tested and estimated based on regression analyses with historical data. Results indicate that the net economic value of key NCP associated with multipurpose dams for local people and associated social equity effects largely depend on the frequency of flood events and on the way impacts are distributed across communities, economic sectors and time.