Governing the nexus: Water-energy-food nexus governance strategies in Ghana and Uganda

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has emerged as a promising approach to achieving water, energy, and food security in an integrated manner in pursuit of sustainable development. Its governance is however a multisectoral, multistakeholder, and multilevel coordination challenge that is still elusive. Little agreement on what constitutes ‘successful’ WEF governance compound the challenge. This paper synthesizes normative, institutional, and procedural potential success factors or indicators from the WEF and other integrative environmental governance (IEG) literature and applies them to analyze the WEF nexus governance strategies of Ghana and Uganda. Literature review, key informant interviews, and stakeholder workshops were used to collect data. The results indicate that constitutional provisions and political commitment provide impetus for integrative WEF policies and legislations, yet long-term development plans rarely reflect the envisaged WEF integration. While WEF nexus thinking is still relatively poor in sectoral documents, the water sector is much ahead due to its dalliance with integrated water resources management (IWRM). Coordinating mechanisms such as intersectoral agencies, joint planning, enhanced communication, participation, and use of ex-ante assessments such as strategic environmental assessment (SEA) emerge as important success factors. However, political will and tradition is sometimes more effective than command and control policy tools. Ultimately, what works best depends on specific contexts, histories, and political economy. For broader adoption and application, introduction of integrative concepts in energy and food sectors, deliberate and active pursuit of WEF nexus integration across government, and involvement of all key WEF stakeholders is crucial. Such efforts can benefit greatly from the WEF nexus governance assessment indicators synthesized and applied in this study. Assessment of the participation and influence of key stakeholder groups, effectiveness of specific policy tools, and WEF nexus capacity needs are areas for future research.