Stakeholder Meeting // First Nexus Dialogues Executive Committee meeting

A platform for mutual exchange

The Nexus Dialogues Programme was launched by EU DEVCO and BMZ at the beginning of 2016 with the aim to further strengthen the political processes at regional and national level that are needed in order to meet the increasing demand for water, energy and food in a sustainable way. The Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme assists regional stakeholders in developing concrete policy recommendations and action plans for future investments with a specific focus on multi-sector infrastructure and correspondent capacity development activities. The first Executive Committee Meeting held at the GIZ premises in Bonn brought together the regional partners involved in the project activities (LAS, ECLAC, SADC, IFAS and NBA), but also international institutions and organisations who are actively supporting Nexus related activities after one year of operation (UNECE, IUCN, Sida and JRC) as well as the implementing agencies CAREC, GWP and GIZ. Likewise, representatives from EU DEVCO, BMZ and the NDC Partnership Support Unit participated in the event. The meeting offered an excellent platform for mutual exchange and learning, but equally important for contributing to the further development of the Programme.

"The Nexus could be seen as the DNA of the Agenda 2030”

Paolo Cicarelli, Chair of the Executive Committee (Head of Unit C5 – Water, Infrastructures, Cities at EU DEVCO) opened the meeting and welcomed the 45 participants. Ms. Tania Rödiger-Vorwerk (Deputy Director General at Directorate 31 at BMZ) stressed in her opening remark that the Nexus approach has come a long way since the Bonn Nexus Conference 2011. She stressed that the learning has proven that coordinating intersectoral processes is complex and often far more complicated as often differing political interests come into force. She underlined that the Nexus approach is a crucial instrument for the implementation of the Agenda 2030 – going as far as saying that “the Nexus could be seen as the DNA of the Agenda 2030”. During the first day, the Global Nexus Secetariat as well as the regional partners and implementing organizations provided an overview of the developments of the Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme in 2016 and gave an outlook of planned activities for 2017. The design of a potential second phase of the Dialogues programme was discussed, too. During the second day issues of common concern for all regions were discussed and presented - like Knowledge Management and the linkage to the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and Paris Agreement, as well as national case studies.

Do not to start from scratch but take existing institutional settings

The discussions over the course of the two days demonstrated that both in the design and implementation of the dialogue components a strong interest for exchange of mutual learning experiences exists on the side of the partners and implementing agencies. Therefore the regional stakeholders but in particular the Global Nexus Secretariat were encouraged to create platforms for mutual exchange. Those might cover exchange on the dialogue approach itself, but also existing policies, programme approaches and projects. At the same time there was consensus during the discussions not to start from scratch but take existing institutional settings, programme planning and project pipelines into consideration. The extent to which existing plans have to be revised will be subject of further dialogue. While participants agreed that access to finance is important, other bottlenecks for sustainable investments like institutional capacity, the effective use of planning tools, legal framework, sector governance or stakeholder involvement were identified to be equally or maybe even more important. The two days have been rich in discussions and information sharing and opened leeway for further sharing of knowledge and experiences as well as cooperation among the various institutions and organisations that are pioneers for the Nexus approach worldwide. This article was provided by giz for the Nexus Resource Platform. Further readings on the Nexus in the regions.