23 Jun 2017
Perspectives on the Nexus // Water, Energy and Food Security in an Era of Climate Change
By Larry A. Swatuk and Corrine Cash. The article is an introduction to a collection that highlights the many and varied ways of analysing and understanding the outcomes of particular resource access, allocation and use decisions. The collection aims at providing insight into the political economy and political ecology of water, energy and food across different socio-political landscapes so that we may be better able to understand the context within which ‘nexus-oriented’ resource use decisions are being made. It therefore counsels critical engagement not only with important issues, but influential discourses about planetary tipping points and what might be done where, how, by whom and for what reason.
There is a well-known trend in policy making circles toward integrating water, energy, and food policy – the WEF nexus – within an overarching climate change and security ‘nexus’. This is reflected in the policy frameworks of the Department for International Development (DfID) and the German Development Agency (GIZ) where the ‘nexus’ is the new operating framework. In addition, significant forums such as the Stockholm World Water Week, hosted by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), and the World Economic Forum have drawn concentrated attention to the linked security issues surrounding water, energy and food, largely from a management perspective. On another level, however, the ‘nexus’ may be read as an over-simplified and apolitical approach to resource management.
The article summarises the current debate as an introduction to a volume that will be published later this year.