Challenge
Today we face multiple interlinked global challenges of which climate change and biodiversity loss are the most pressing. Together these represent the greatest threats to economic development, livelihoods, and human health in the 21st century. Against this background, sectoral interventions undertaken in isolation without due consideration of other sectors are one of the biggest challenges to delivering effective, sustainable solutions. The transboundary nature of many river basins makes integrated and sustainable management of water, energy, food, and ecosystems particularly challenging. Systems approaches – facilitating integrated approaches across sectors to identify positive synergies and manage trade-offs – are a prerequisite for sustainable development.
The CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains recognizes that water, land, energy, forests, and biodiversity are inextricably interconnected and critical to nutrition, health, and food security, poverty reduction, livelihoods and jobs, climate adaptation and mitigation, and environmental health and biodiversity. The Initiative promotes systems thinking to avoid unintended consequences, enhance sustainable development, and realize multiple benefits across the water, energy, food, and ecosystems nexus. Good governance across boundaries and sectors requires strong institutions and actors willing to overcome siloed approaches and adopt new tools to support systems approaches.
Objective
This Initiative aims to realize gains across water, energy, food, and ecosystems in selected transboundary river basins, by developing research and capacity to strengthen systems thinking, and providing tools, guidelines, training, and facilitation for analysis and research for development.
Activities
This objective will be achieved through:
- Applying trade-off analyses and foresight methodologies to support national and local government capacity in applying research evidence and data in policy and decision-making processes to assess and develop prioritized solutions for water, energy, food, and ecosystems.
- Boosting water productivity and water storage management to improve food and nutrition security and support socioeconomic development in water-scarce regions by co-developing tools at transboundary to local scales for use by decision-making bodies.
- Energizing food and water systems by co-developing business and finance models for accelerated inclusive access to clean energy and water systems and supporting governments and other actors to take decisions to reduce the environmental footprint of food systems.
- Strengthening water, energy, food, and ecosystems nexus governance by, among other things, supporting cross-sectoral multistakeholder platforms and ensuring marginalized voices are heard.
- Developing capacity for emerging women leaders by supporting women’s empowerment through technical and leadership skills development.
Engagement
This Initiative will work in five international river basins (the Aral Sea, Ganges, Indus, Blue Nile, and Limpopo/Incomati Basins) and, initially, the following countries as a priority: Botswana, Ethiopia, India, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, Sudan, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe.
Outcomes
Proposed 3-year outcomes include:
- NEXUS Gains modeling tools will be used to assess prioritized water–energy–food–ecosystems (WEFE) innovations. Targets: Ganges and Indus river basins.
- Novel water productivity assessments or water storage diagnostics will enable integrated assessments across scales and sectors to improve system-level water security. Targets: Ganges and Indus river basins, Blue Nile basin.
- New knowledge regarding targeting of gender-responsive, clean energy solutions, will grow sustainable investment and the reach of public, private, and non-governmental organization (NGO) actors and rural communities sector actors using NEXUS Gains tools. Targets: Blue Nile basin (Ethiopia), Ganges (India and Nepal) and Indus (Pakistan).
- Policy makers and stakeholders at different levels will identify WEFE nexus governance approaches that are sustainable and equitable. Targets: India and Nepal.
- Key women and men professionals in government, NGOs, and civil society organizations (CSOs) will acquire increased technical, leadership, and negotiation capacities to design, influence, and implement WEFE nexus approaches. Targets: 40 professionals (at least 60% of whom are women) have increased capacities, across one or more focal basins.
Impact
Projected impacts and benefits include:
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ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & BIODIVERSITY
Co-design of and capacity development to use the latest Earth observation data and state-of-the-art digital tools to support effective uptake by planners and policymakers responsible for national policies and strategies for environmental sustainability and biodiversity, bringing 0.3 million hectares of land under improved management. |
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NUTRITION, HEALTH & FOOD SECURITY
Underlying environmental, social and policy conditions that enable affordable healthy diets and safe nutritious food production are addressed, resulting in healthy, sustainable diets becoming more widely available and affordable, directly benefiting 2.5 million people and indirectly benefiting 23 million. |
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POVERTY REDUCTION, LIVELIHOODS & JOBS
Rural poverty is addressed by increasing farm income through better access to clean energy, water and irrigation technology, higher resource-use efficiency, and generation of additional jobs and revenue opportunities for 2.5 million people, including women, youth and marginalized communities. |
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GENDER EQUALITY, YOUTH & SOCIAL INCLUSION
Initiative capacity and mentorship programs focus on women, youth and marginalized groups, directly benefiting 0.4 million women and 0.5 million youth. The Initiative also considers how to strengthen women’s agency in the development of guidelines and toolboxes, focusing on accelerating clean energy access, improving groundwater governance and supporting cross-sectoral multistakeholder platforms building on earlier CGIAR and other work. |
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CLIMATE ADAPTATION & MITIGATION
Scientific evidence on the impacts of climate-smart solutions across a range of sectors, and quantification of co-benefits and trade-offs, inform climate investments to ensure that they are effective and do not jeopardize system sustainability and resilience. Innovative financial models support inclusive and sustainable scaling, averting 2.5 million tonnes in equivalent emissions of CO2 and benefiting 2.5 million people. |
Projected benefits are a way to illustrate reasonable orders of magnitude for impacts which could arise as a result of the impact pathways set out in the Initiative’s theories of change. In line with the 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy, Initiatives contribute to these impact pathways, along with other partners and stakeholders. CGIAR does not deliver impact alone. These projections therefore estimate plausible levels of impact to which CGIAR, with partners, contribute. They do not estimate CGIAR’s attributable share of the different impact pathways.
Partners
Partnerships are essential to the success of CGIAR Initiatives. The NEXUS Gains Initiative will work with a wide array of demand, innovation and scaling partners, including strong collaboration with national governments, civil society organizations, the private sector and academia, and international partnerships with universities, funders, and investors.
Leadership
- Lead: Matthew McCartney, m.mccartney@cgiar.org
- Co-lead: Claudia Ringler, c.ringler@cgiar.org
