Addressing the challenges of water-energy-food nexus programme in the context of sustainable development and climate change in South Africa (original) (raw)

Journal of Water and Climate Change

The fast-growing pace of the world's population and the increasing pressure exerted on global life supporting natural systems due to amplified natural resource use and consumption coupled with the impacts of climate change necessitates the development of innovative technologies and comprehensive policy frameworks to address the looming crisis in the water, energy and food nexus. As the 30th driest country globally, South Africa has embarked on and enacted a pro-water-energy and food nexus policy which aims to create an understanding of the interdependencies of the three components and their influence on socio-economic growth and national development in the face of climate change-induced environmental changes. While these policies and programmes appear to have a sound theoretical basis, their implementation has been hindered by a number of structural and systemic challenges. Using methods inspired by the tradition of participatory research, this paper discusses the strengths and ...