Chair

Prof. Melissa Leach - Director, Institute of Development Studies.

Speakers

Peter Newborne - Research Associate, ODI, on the Brazil case study.

Andrew Scott - Research Fellow, ODI, overview of progress in development and the water-energy-food nexus.

Nina Weitz - Research Associate, Stockholm Environment Institute, on the the relevance of the water-energy-food nexus to the proposed Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation.

Joël Ouedraogo - Executive Director, Fédération Nationale des Groupements Naam (FNGN), on the Burkina Faso case study (video interview).

Amanda Lenhardt - Research Officer, ODI, introducing the Burkina Faso case study and video interview with Joël Ouedraogo.

The event was opened by Prof. Melissa Leach, Director of the Institute of Development Studies who provided an overview of the importance of considering a nexus approach when measuring progress in development. She suggested in order to achieve a better balance between the use of natural resources to ensure long term sustainability, real tensions of immediate livelihood needs, economic and political pressures need to be managed. Whilst policy makers are still grappling with ways to manage these issues on the ground, according to Prof. Leach the food-water-energy nexus provides a powerful way to think about the challenges and integrate the ways in which people use natural resources. Handing over to the panel, Prof. Leach noted that the Development Progress project’s case studies are important contributions to the debates around the nexus.

Andrew Scott, Environment Dimension Lead for Development Progress, linked up the Development Progress research and the concept of the nexus. He explained that policy decisions tend to be made when considering sector specific factors whereas a holistic decision making process would be far more beneficial. In Andrew’s view, when dealing with water, energy and food – complex systems in their own right – we need to consider the complexities of their relationships with each other as well as context specific matters where systems are being implemented in different landscapes. In order to understand the trade-offs and synergies of the nexus on the ground, context specific insights are required and by using a case study approach to research this, the hope is to how these factors are impacting development.

Peter Newborne, Research Associate, ODI went on to present the Development Progress’ case study on sustainable energy in Brazil, with a focus on a ‘big country’ perspective of energy and water and featuring observations and lessons from the nexus approach. He began by situating the concept of the food-water-energy nexus in Brazil, where the principle source of electricity supply is hydropower. Peter noted that there are several key challenges in running a grid of the magnitude faced in Brazil through hydropower including competition for water usage. Major interests in the country are behind the current policy direction regarding power but these include aggressive proposals to further hydropower expansion in the Amazon where decisions to build these large power plants are made long before local consultation, indicating a lack of nexus thinking in planning processes. With energy being the dominant driver in this nexus, it is vital to consider alternative water demands for agriculture and human development to ensure a balance in real terms for local people.

The next research to be presented was on sustainable agriculture in Burkina Faso. Amanda Lenhardt, Research Officer, ODI introduced a video interview carried out with Joël Ouedraogo, a representative from the FNGN farmers’ union in Burkina Faso, to frame the case study. Amanda noted that the initial situation in Burkina Faso in the 1980s was a prime example of unsustainable agriculture where over-farming had led to large parts of the country becoming deserts, a fragile situation which was exacerbated by climate change where rain patterns became unpredictable and the country was struck by some of the highest levels of poverty in the world. Over the last 20 years though, the situation has become has begun to be reversed, through the reclamation of desert land and their conversion into farmable terrain. She outlined the focus of the case study, asking questions such as how the shift towards a more sustainable farming system had come about? The research found that simple but effective farming techniques have been implemented, designed to conserve water and regenerate the land. The shift has been context driven and relevant to the local setting where agricultural outputs have increased and water withdrawals decreased.

The video interview was then played, where Joël Ouedraogo detailed ways in which farmers are being trained to implement simple yet effective methods of shifting towards sustainable agricultural practices to produce healthy yields and rehabilitate tired lands.

The final presentation came from Nina Weitz, a Research Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute, who looked at the importance of nexus thinking for the Sustainable Development Goals. In order to establish relevant and transformative goals for sustainable development, she argued that there is a need to address the root causes of complex and interlinked development challenges. In order to ensure long-term sustainability, Ms. Weitz believes it to be vital that we integrate the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development, with such changes needing to occur in rich countries as well as poor. Meeting the Millennium Development Goals has been difficult in part because intersectoral thinking has not taken place. For the SDGs, Ms. Weitz proposes clarifying shared interests and aggregating the use of resources by several targets - a final framework which avoids conflicting or overlapping targets will serve to maximise the potential synergies and efficient solutions. She concluded that nexus thinking can support planners at a country level through a bottom up process that assists in conceptualising, visualising and quantifying the trade-offs and synergies to inform decision-making and prioritisation of targets, connecting country level policy processes to the global SDG process.