Within Nepal, water, energy, food, and ecosystems (WEFE) are vital resources not merely for the current generation, but also for future ones, especially to satisfy the demands of a growing population and to respond to socio-economic changes. The WEFE nexus approach realizes that the management of water, energy, food, and ecosystems must be undertaken in a holistic way. Nevertheless, governments, investors, and other stakeholders face challenges in the management of WEFE resources, particularly in the face of climate change. Notably, a lack of coordination in utilizing such resources can be a source of potential conflict in many areas. On June 19 and 20, 2022, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation (DWRI) co-organized a co-learning workshop to discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrated management of WEFE resources using the nexus thinking approach in Nepal.

The Nile is the lifeblood of northeastern Africa, and its roles for and interdependency with the national economies it traverses and binds together grow as it moves from source to sea. With rapid economic development—population growth, irrigation development, rural electrification, and overall economic growth—pressures on the Nile’s water resources are growing to unprecedented levels. These drivers of change have already contributed to stark changes in the hydropolitical regime, and new forms of cooperation and cross-sectoral collaboration are needed, particularly in the Eastern Nile Basin countries of Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan. As direct sharing of water resources is hampered by unilateral developments, the need has increased for broader, cross-sectoral collaboration around the water, energy, and food sectors. This study is conducted to assess and understand the challenges of and opportunities for cooperation across the water-energy-food nexus nationally in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, as well as regionally across the Eastern Nile. To gather data, the paper uses an e-survey supplemented with key informant interviews geared toward national-level water, energy, and agriculture stakeholders, chiefly government staff and researchers. Findings from the survey tools suggest that most respondents strongly agree that collaboration across the water, energy, and agriculture sectors is essential to improve resource management in the region. At the same time, there is ample scope for improvement in collaboration across the water, energy, and food sectors nationally. Ministries of water, energy, and food were identified as the key nexus actors at national levels; these would also need to be engaged in regional cross-sectoral collaboration. Respondents also identified a wide range of desirable cross-sectoral actions and investments—both national and regional—chiefly, joint planning and operation of multipurpose infrastructure; investment in enhanced irrigation efficiency; joint rehabilitation of upstream catchments to reduce sedimentation and degradation; and investment in alternative renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar energy. | Non-PR | IFPRI1; CRP5; E Building Resilience | EPTD; DSGD | CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)

CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) | Berga Helen et al., 'Addressing transboundary cooperation in the Eastern Nile through the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Insights from an E-survey and key informant interviews', , IFPRI, 2017

The Nile is the lifeblood of northeastern Africa, and its roles for and interdependency with the national economies it traverses and binds together grow as it moves from source to sea. With rapid economic development—population growth, irrigation development, rural electrification, and overall economic growth—pressures on the Nile’s water resources are growing to unprecedented levels. These drivers of change have already contributed to stark changes in the hydropolitical regime, and new forms of cooperation and cross-sectoral collaboration are needed, particularly in the Eastern Nile Basin countries of Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan. As direct sharing of water resources is hampered by unilateral developments, the need has increased for broader, cross-sectoral collaboration around the water, energy, and food sectors. This study is conducted to assess and understand the challenges of and opportunities for cooperation across the water-energy-food nexus nationally in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, as well as regionally across the Eastern Nile. To gather data, the paper uses an e-survey supplemented with key informant interviews geared toward national-level water, energy, and agriculture stakeholders, chiefly government staff and researchers. Findings from the survey tools suggest that most respondents strongly agree that collaboration across the water, energy, and agriculture sectors is essential to improve resource management in the region. At the same time, there is ample scope for improvement in collaboration across the water, energy, and food sectors nationally. Ministries of water, energy, and food were identified as the key nexus actors at national levels; these would also need to be engaged in regional cross-sectoral collaboration. Respondents also identified a wide range of desirable cross-sectoral actions and investments—both national and regional—chiefly, joint planning and operation of multipurpose infrastructure; investment in enhanced irrigation efficiency; joint rehabilitation of upstream catchments to reduce sedimentation and degradation; and investment in alternative renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar energy.

In the past decade, research on interconnected resource challenges has primarily focused on quantifying physical resource interconnections, and there is a growing focus on the social, economic, and policy dimensions of these interconnections. While the nature of the complexity of interconnected resource challenges resulted in emphasizing the need for inter- and trans-disciplinary research and in increased collaboration between research groups, little work has examined the convergence of perspectives between the research groups and their respective stakeholders. This paper focuses on the San Antonio Region of Texas: a resource hotspot characterized by rapid urbanization, increased energy production in the Eagle Ford Shale Play, and growing agricultural activity. The paper reports on a survey sent to 370 researchers and regional stakeholders from governmental, non-governmental/non-profit, and business organizations in the Region's water, energy, or food sectors. The study goals were to 1) evaluate levels of convergence in perspectives regarding the water, energy, and food challenges in the Region; 2) quantify existing levels of communication of both researchers and regional stakeholders with identified WEF organizations in the region; and 3)identify barriers to and opportunities for improving communication between the WEF organizations and the researchers involved. The authors found aspects of convergence between surveyed regional stakeholders and researchers. Aspects of convergence exist between both groups regarding the potential of different Texas Development Water Board strategies to address future water challenges. Modest levels of communication were reported between surveyed researchers and regional stakeholders with other identified WEF organizations. Both groups converge on the potential roles of “increased communication” and “sharing information between agencies” as a means to improve cooperation to address interconnected resource challenges. To make this possible, institutional mechanisms and resource allocations for such activities must be revisited. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd