Christian Stein, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Jennie Barron, 'Towards a relational understanding of the water-energy-food nexus: an analysis of embeddedness and governance in the Upper Blue Nile region of Ethiopia', Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 90, pp.173-182, Elsevier BV, 2018 | Given the need for transformative changes towards more sustainable, integrated management of water, energy and food systems, the water-energy-food nexus concept seems highly relevant. However, while intuitively compelling, the nexus has also been criticized for abstracting and thereby dis-embedding the collaboration processes through which further integration could be achieved. There is a lack of empirical analysis and contextsensitive understanding, of the opportunities and constraints of, collaboration and cross-sector coordination, as faced by actors governing interconnected water, energy and food systems. In this paper we analyse how actors involved in the governance of water, energy and food systems are embedded in social networks, and discuss how that embeddedness shapes collaboration and coordination processes that are relevant for addressing interconnected sustainability challenges. Drawing on the notion of problemsheds, we delineate an analytical space that captures the interactions between water, energy and food systems and the actors influencing them in the Upper Blue Nile of Ethiopia. Our empirical data suggest that the claim that actors from different sectors are disconnected from each other is overly simplistic. The ways in which actors are embedded in hierarchical structures may help to explain why coordination challenges persist, despite the presence of cross-sectoral linkages among them

Given the need for transformative changes towards more sustainable, integrated management of water, energy and food systems, the water-energy-food nexus concept seems highly relevant. However, while intuitively compelling, the nexus has also been criticized for abstracting and thereby dis-embedding the collaboration processes through which further integration could be achieved. There is a lack of empirical analysis and contextsensitive understanding, of the opportunities and constraints of, collaboration and cross-sector coordination, as faced by actors governing interconnected water, energy and food systems. In this paper we analyse how actors involved in the governance of water, energy and food systems are embedded in social networks, and discuss how that embeddedness shapes collaboration and coordination processes that are relevant for addressing interconnected sustainability challenges. Drawing on the notion of problemsheds, we delineate an analytical space that captures the interactions between water, energy and food systems and the actors influencing them in the Upper Blue Nile of Ethiopia. Our empirical data suggest that the claim that actors from different sectors are disconnected from each other is overly simplistic. The ways in which actors are embedded in hierarchical structures may help to explain why coordination challenges persist, despite the presence of cross-sectoral linkages among them.

Under the CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Council for Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) jointly organized a National Stakeholder Workshop on “Policy Coherence for Food, Land, and Water” in India on 16th June 2023 at India Habitat Center in New Delhi. Guided by NITI Aayog, an apex public policy think tank of the Government of India, IWMI and CEEW researched the policy landscape at the national level in the food, land, and water (FLW) sectors, shortlisting seven central government schemes to understand ways to strengthen policy coherence and impact. The workshop was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, NITI Aayog and 17 government and civil society organizations working in the food, land, and water sectors. Under the able guidance of Debashree Mukherjee (Special Secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti) and Avinash Mishra (Advisor, NITI Aayog), the participants discussed the study’s key recommendations, existing institutional mechanisms to catalyze coherence, harnessing synergies and balancing trade-offs across the food, land, and water sectors.

Under the CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Council for Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) jointly organized a National Stakeholder Workshop on “Policy Coherence for Food, Land, and Water” in India on 16th June 2023 at India Habitat Center in New Delhi. Guided by NITI Aayog, an apex public policy think tank of the Government of India, IWMI and CEEW researched the policy landscape at the national level in the food, land, and water (FLW) sectors, shortlisting seven central government schemes to understand ways to strengthen policy coherence and impact. The workshop was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, NITI Aayog and 17 government and civil society organizations working in the food, land, and water sectors. Under the able guidance of Debashree Mukherjee (Special Secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti) and Avinash Mishra (Advisor, NITI Aayog), the participants discussed the study’s key recommendations, existing institutional mechanisms to catalyze coherence, harnessing synergies and balancing trade-offs across the food, land, and water sectors.