Afghanistan has abundant water resources; however, the current state of affairs is dismal because of the lack of integrated water resources management (IWRM) practices and prolonged war and conflict in the country. Therefore, there is a need for a systematic approach to water management, which can be materialized by integrating IWRM and the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus approach to maintain a critical balance of available water resources and their various uses at the national level. This study provides a comprehensive assessment of Afghanistan's water resource management, including the current state, challenges, opportunities, and way forward. The identified challenges are categorized as social and environmental issues, engineering and technical and regulatory, policy and government role. These challenges are inter-connected and a novel framework toward the implementation of IWRM and the WEF nexus in Afghanistan is proposed. This framework can be used by the relevant stakeholders to prepare a roadmap for sustainable management of water resources. Such integrative approaches will enhance Afghanistan's water, food, and energy security and significantly contribute to its economic development. Moving forward, the Afghanistan government must play a crucial role with regards to the efficient management of the country's water resources in an integrated manner as suggested in this paper. HIGHLIGHTS Critical assessment on Afghanistan's water resources development.; Challenges to Afghanistan's water resources development are inter-connected.; A novel framework and multisectoral approach toward the implementation of IWRM and the WEF nexus in Afghanistan is proposed.; Enhancing IWRM and WEF nexus may eradicate hunger as the agriculture sector is disconnected with water, land, and energy sectors.;

The threat of climate change is emerging at a time of rapid growth for many economies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Dominant narratives comprising ambitious development plans are common and often based around sectors with strong inter-dependencies that are highly exposed to climate variability. Using document analysis and key informant interviews, this article examines how climate change is addressed in policy, how it is being mainstreamed into water, energy and agriculture sector policies and the extent to which cross-sectoral linkages enable coordinated action. These questions are addressed through a case study of Tanzania, highlighting broader lessons for other developing countries, particularly those in SSA facing similar challenges. The article finds that, while the agriculture and water sectors are increasingly integrating climate change into policies and plans in Tanzania, practical coordination on adaptation remains relatively superficial. Publication of the Tanzania National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) in 2007 marked a step change in the integration of climate change in sectoral policies and plans; however, it may have reinforced a sectoral approach to climate change. Examining the policies for coherence highlights overlaps and complementarities which lend themselves to a coordinated approach. Institutional constraints (particularly structures and resources) restrict opportunities for inter-sectoral action and thus collaboration is confined to ad hoc projects with mixed success to date. The results highlight the need for institutional frameworks that recognize and address these constraints to enable development goals to be pursued in a more sustainable and climate-resilient manner. KEY POLICY INSIGHTS The NAPA has been successful at encouraging climate change mainstreaming into sectoral policies in Tanzania; however, the cross-sectoral collaboration crucial to implementing adaptation strategies remains limited due to institutional challenges such as power imbalances, budget constraints and an ingrained sectoral approach. Collaboration between nexus sectors in Tanzania is largely through ad hoc projects with limited progress on establishing deeper connections to enable collaboration as a process. Regular cross-sectoral planning meetings and consistent annual budgets could provide a platform to enhance cross-sectoral coordination. Plans to develop hydropower and agriculture are prevalent across sub-Saharan Africa. Insights from Tanzania highlight the importance of institutional and policy frameworks that enable cross-sectoral coordination.

The existence of a water-energy-food ‘nexus’ has been gaining significant attention in international natural resource policy debates in recent years. We argue the term ‘nexus’ can be currently seen as a buzzword: a term whose power derives from a combination of ambiguous meaning and strong normative resonance. We explore the ways in which the nexus terminology is emerging and being mobilised by different stakeholders in natural resource debates in the UK context. We suggest that in the UK the mobilisation of the nexus terminology can best be understood as symptomatic of broader global science-policy trends, including an increasing emphasis on integration as an ideal; an emphasis on technical solutions to environmental problems; achievement of efficiency gains and ‘win-wins’; and a preference for technocratic forms of environmental managerialism. We identify and critique an ‘integrative imaginary’ underpinning much of the UK discourse around the concept of the nexus, and argue that attending to questions of power is a crucial but often underplayed aspect of proposed integration. We argue that while current efforts to institutionalise the language of the nexus as a conceptual framework for research in the UK may provide a welcome opportunity for new forms of transdisciplinary, they may risk turning nexus into a ‘matter of fact’ where it should remain a ‘matter of concern’. In this vein, we indicate the importance of critique to the development of nexus research.

Kabir, K.A., Saha, S.B., Phillips, M., Karim, M., Meisner, C.A. (2016) Global Aquaculture Advocate, online 22 Feb (open access) | The Southwestern coastal zone of Bangladesh is agro-based and one of the worldâ??s most populous, poverty-stricken and food-insecure regions, with high vulnerability to climate change. Shrimp aquaculture rapidly expanded in this tidal floodplain but shrimp is highly susceptible to disease, has less contribution in local consumption, and its profitability depends on international market prices, leading the demand for improving the farming system. There is an opportunity to diversify and increase system productivity by integrating rice with aquaculture during the monsoon season through adoption of some water management practices at an individual and community level. This also minimizes the effluent load of aquaculture intensification

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

This report covers the first visit by the NRI team to Ghana in the start-up of the agronomy component of the Integrated Food Crops Systems Project (IFCSP). The team was fully supported by in-country IFCSP personnel, VSO (Ms Meijer) and other collaborators. The purpose of the visit was to establish the project on the ground following funding approval from the NRSP FAI programme. This involved defining the activities of the various collaborators and conducting a participatory rural appraisal of farmers' perceptions and practices for maintaining soil fertility in dry season vegetable producing areas of Brong Ahafo region. The PRA which was carried out in four typical vegetable growing areas revealed that farmers use considerable amounts of inorganic fertilisers but are concerned about their costs and that increased quantities are required to maintain yields at former levels. Many farmers practice fallowing to maintain soil fertility and to avoid pest build-up, but generally fallow periods are becoming shorter. The project aims to overcome these constraints through the introduction and testing of suitable legume cover crops and green manures. A strategy for introducing the concept of cover crop and green manure usage and testing was developed for each of the four study locales following completion of the PRA. Strategies are related to the soil type(s) present, water availability and husbandry practices employed. Arrangements were made with SRI to conduct an initial soil survey and analysis of two surveyed areas before the start of the rains in April. Funding for the survey will be provided from the newly opened project account in Sunyani. Arrangements were made to purchase seed of suitable cover crops from CRI and seeds of those not available were ordered from European suppliers. Agreement for importing new accessions were made with the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Department (Accra) and the Plant Genetic Resources Centre, at Bunso.