Operationalizing the Water-Food-Energy Nexus in the Context of Climate-smart Agriculture

The first webinar on the Water-Food-Energy (WFE) nexus was conducted on 24 March 2022 to introduce the Nexus concept and discuss the relevance of Nexus trade-offs – these define trade-offs between water, food, and energy security – for stakeholders in GMS countries. The latter confirmed that the Nexus is of high relevance for decision makers and planners in all GMS countries as traditional processes have occurred in sector silos often triggering substantial unintended cross-sector trade-offs.

On 24 November 2022, the second webinar on the WFE Nexus will be held to introduce approaches to operationalize Nexus thinking. While the Nexus concept is still considered novel, a range of methods and tools have been developed to guide decision makers and planners by revealing trade-offs and synergies. The workshop will present a few methods and tools ranging from simple approaches that can be swiftly deployed during investment planning processes to complex systems models.

The workshop will be supported by the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security Program (TA 9916). TA 9916 aims to contribute to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) assistance on the Water-Food-Energy Nexus and assist in promoting cooperation across the GMS in efforts to reduce Nexus trade-offs.

Objectives

1. National agriculture sector policy makers to be more aware of Nexus management solutions to mitigate Nexus trade-offs;
2. Increase donor partner awareness of solutions to mitigate Nexus trade-offs and consider these Nexus management tools in sector planning and investment projects;
3. Facilitate dialogue between Government officials and donor partners to support Nexus planning and develop the basis for a policy platform; and,
4. Identify the role that TA 9916 and its consultants can play to assist GMS stakeholders with successfully applying the Nexus approach in their work.

Expected outputs

1. The national agriculture sector policy makers are more aware of the Nexus management tools;
2. Donor partners increase awareness of the needs for supporting GMS stakeholders to apply Nexus management solutions in GMS agriculture investment projects and, thereby, to mitigate Nexus trade-offs; and
3. TA 9916 project and consultants' proactive engagement to assist GMS stakeholders with their efforts to apply the Nexus approach;
4. Nexus policy and management issues for further dialogue are identified.