Framing the Water-energy Nexus for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Abstract

World leaders are increasingly recognizing the importance of the water-energy nexus perspective as a conceptual framework to facilitate integrated planning and decision-making for the post-2015 development agenda. We present three fundamental narratives of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative to reinforce the argument for a global nexus perspective aimed at sustainable development: i) energy ought to be placed at the center of the global development agenda to address development challenges such as hunger, poverty, gender empowerment, education and access to water and sanitation; ii) by changing the way we produce and use energy, GHG emissions can be decoupled from economic growth with the possibility to stabilize climate change below 2 degrees Celsius; and iii) the energy system is intertwined with other global systems (e.g. water, climate change, land and food production systems, etc.), which are strongly interdependent. All three narratives require systems thinking and a nexus framework for a more coordinated approach to sustainable resources management, which in turn requires concerted action in all spheres of influence and at all levels of implementation. We seek the attention and support of international development partners to commit resources and support ongoing initiatives aimed at operationalizing the nexus perspective into concrete actions for the post-2015 development agenda.