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06 Jul 2021
Nexus Blog // “Water, Energy and Food for Thought” - Launch of NRDs new webinar series
The Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme (NRD), jointly funded by the European Commission and the Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ), kicked off its webinar series “Water, Energy and Food for Thought” on June 28, 2021. It focused on the important topic of institutionalisation: how to move from silo to cross-sectoral policy-making.
Is WEF Nexus institutionalisation a power game? And if so, how do we ensure that there is more than one winner?
Following inspirational welcoming words by Sophie Breul-Busson from the European Commission, the session dived right into the subject matter.
Our first stop was the Southern African region, where Kidanemariam Jembere Tiruneh from the Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWP-SA) shared experiences and lessons learned on the successful set-up and ratification of the WEF Nexus Governance Framework at the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which consists of a cross-sectoral working group with the mandate of aligning sector interests in transboundary projects.
What were the success factors?
GWP-SA garnered high political support for the application of a Nexus approach by conducting multi-stakeholder dialogues with member states and by defining a common understanding and appreciation for integrated natural resources management. In addition to this, GWP-SA seized the opportunity of applying the WEF Nexus approach in existing national planning processes such as the National Determined Contributions.
The session then took us on a virtual tour to Nepal and Finland through our esteemed guest speakers. “Nexus is not a power game, on the contrary, it offers a consensual solution to silo power struggles”, explained Dipak Gyawali, former Minister of Water Resources of Nepal. Seppo Rekolainen, Chair of the UNECE Taskforce on the WEFE Nexus, seconded this notion, stressing the importance of creating a level of trust between sectors for them to engage in a meaningful exchange of interests, positions and ultimately agree on joint planning processes.
Mariana Rodriguez Gomez Cornejo, head of the NRD project at GIZ, closed the event by proclaiming that this fruitful discussion is but the mere beginning of many more to come. We hope you can join the next one!
In this sense, “Everyone has to be a winner... and must understand that one sector cannot sustain without the other.” - Seppo Rekolainen
Read this article in French here.
Video
Watch the recorded session here:
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