event 13 Oct 2015

Initiative // FE2W Network: Food Energy Environemt Water

FE2W is a group of leading experts from universities, multilateral organisations and non-government organisations committed to addressing the world's food, energy, environment and water challenges. Its motto is "Understand Risks - Engage Decision-Makers - Enable Action".

Logo fe2wnetwork

Food, energy, environment and water are critical systems to both people and landscapes. Too often decisions are made in one domain without consideration of the effects in another. This narrow focus imposes costs and risks on all, but especially on the vulnerable in poor countries.

The FE2W Network works with decision-makers to improve the understanding of systemic risks and how to manage shocks across these systems. Our approach is founded on collaboration and an emphasis on poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods, and the need to maintain critical ecosystem services. We engage with the people who make the decision from farmers to policy makers to consumers, and enable actions that result in improved long-term outcomes.

Components

Understand Risks

to the security of food, energy, environment and water resources. The linkages across systems means that a narrowly focused approach to fixing one problem often exacerbates stresses elsewhere. For example, subsidised electricity for poor farmers may drive excessive groundwater pumping that undermines water, food and energy security. By contrast, FE2W's holistic approach to food, energy, environment and water informs its understanding of the range of potential costs, benefits and feedback effects associated with different management decisions.

Engage Decision-makers

on developing, adapting, and implementing decision frameworks that consider food, energy, environment and water as integrated systems. FE2W helps decision-makers confronted by risks and uncertainty to tackle complex problems in a straightforward way. FE2W's decision frameworks provide a pathway to practical, relevant responses that meet specific goals and heed cross-system risks.

Enable Action

by decision-makers, be it a farmer or a water minister, that results in improved long-term outcomes for people and the natural resources they depend on. FE2W's knowledge and experience allows it to support decision-makers’ understanding of the risks and outcomes across food, energy, environment and water systems. FE2W's approach helps decision-makers balance trade-offs, reduce risks, and accommodate uncertainty. FE2W seeks ‘win-win’ solutions and approaches so that local and national level projects can be scalable across different locations and circumstances and generate on-the-ground improvements to people’s lives.

Central to FE2W's approach is the primacy given to poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods and the need to maintain critical ecosystems at multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Global Security Challenge

Governance without a better understanding of interconnected links between systems can cause cascading failures, or increase systemic risks. Without understanding systemic risks and lacking governance frameworks to make better decisions there will be increased political and social volatility. Crises will emerge quickly and unexpectedly. This is a clear and present danger and a global challenge.

Website

Food, Energy, Environment and Water (FE2W) Network (fe2wnetwork.org)

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