The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Global, Basin, and local Case Studies of Resource Use Efficiency under Growing Natural Resource Scarcity

Keywords

Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus, renewable energy, decentralized energy options

Countries

Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt

Summary

The project aims to conduct an assessment of tradeoffs and synergies across the water, energy and food sectors, including evaluation of opportunities for the decentralized energy production and use, as well as of entry points for increased resource use efficiency in Ethiopia’s Nile Basin.

Methodology

The principal hypothesis of this project is that by holistically assessing water-energy-food security strategies with partners, tradeoffs across these sectors can be reduced and solutions can be identified that reduce adverse outcomes for poor men and women. The project will use a mixed methods approach that includes gender-disaggregated participatory rural appraisals, focus group discussions, gender-disaggregated data collection, policy dialogues with ENTRO and nested modeling across various scales--including the local, basin, and global scales, to identify tradeoffs and alternative management, technology and governance options that sustainably increase resource use efficiency; which each level of modeling serving as the boundary conditions for the next level of analysis.

Main Cooperation Partners

• IFPRI
• ENTRO
• Addis Ababa University

Main Funding Partners

German federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

Publications

von Braun, J. 2016. Policy Nook: "Expanding Water Modeling to Serve Real Policy Needs". Water Economics and Policy, 1671004.

von Braun J. and Mirzabaev A. 2016. Nexus scientific research–Theory and approach serving sustainable development. In: Dodds F .and Bartram J.(eds.) The Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus: Challenges and an Agenda for Action. Oxford, UK: Earthscan.

Mirzabaev, A., Guta, D., Goedecke, J., Gaur, V., Börner, J., Virchow, D., ... & von Braun, J. (2015). Bioenergy, food security and poverty reduction: trade-offs and synergies along the water–energy–food security nexus. Water International, 40(5-6), 772-790.

Djanibekov, U., Finger, R., Guta, D. D., Gaur, V., & Mirzabaev, A. (2016). A generic model for analyzing nexus issues of households’ bioenergy use. ZEF Discussion paper 209. Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

Guta, D., Jara, J., Adhikari, N., Qiu, C., Gaur, V. and A. Mirzabaev. (2015). Decentralized Energy in Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus in Developing Countries: Case Studies on Successes and Failures. (ZEF Discussion Papers 203), Bonn, Germany.

Duration of the Project

2015 - 06/2018