Water, Energy, Food and People Across the Global South: ‘The Nexus’ in an Era of Climate Change

358 Pages·2018·4.42 MB·English

by  Larry A. Swatuk

International Political Economy Series
Water, Energy, Food and
People Across the Global South
‘The Nexus’ in an Era of Climate Change
Edited by Larry A. Swatuk and Corrine Cash
International Political Economy Series
Series editor
Timothy M. Shaw
University of London
University of Massachusetts Boston
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
The global political economy is in flux as a series of cumulative crises
impacts its organization and governance. The IPE series has tracked its
development in both analysis and structure over the last three decades. It
has always had a concentration on the global South. Now the South
increasingly challenges the North as the centre of development, also
reflected in a growing number of submissions and publications on indebted
Eurozone economies in Southern Europe. An indispensable resource for
scholars and researchers, the series examines a variety of capitalisms and
connections by focusing on emerging economies, companies and sectors,
debates and policies. It informs diverse policy communities as the estab-
lished trans-Atlantic North declines and ‘the rest’, especially the BRICS,
rise.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/13996
Larry A. Swatuk • Corrine Cash
Editors
Water, Energy, Food
and People Across the
Global South
‘The Nexus’ in an Era of Climate Change
Editors
Larry A. Swatuk Corrine Cash
School of Environment, Coady International Institute
Enterprise and Development St. Francis Xavier University
University of Waterloo Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
International Political Economy Series
ISBN 978-3-319-64023-5 ISBN 978-3-319-64024-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64024-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955025
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A
cknowledgments
The genesis of this project stems from a one-day workshop organized by
Peter Mollinga, Laura Hammond and Anna Lindley in the Centre for
Water and Development at the University of London’s School of Oriental
and African Studies (SOAS) and by Lyla Mehta, Jeremy Allouche and
Alan Nicol of the IDS and STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex. The
title of the workshop was ‘Not Another Nexus? Critical Thinking on the
“New Security Convergence” in Energy, Food, Climate and Water’. This
was in 2012 (See: https://www.soas.ac.uk/water/event/26oct2012-
not-another-nexus-critical-thinking-on-the-new-security-convergence-in-
energy-food-climate.html). At that meeting, a plan was hatched by a few
participants to hold a follow-up meeting at the University of Waterloo.
This workshop happened two years later, over two days in the Northern
Winter of 2014, and was titled ‘Healthy Climates: Governance in the
Water, Energy, Food and Climate Security Nexus’. The Waterloo meeting
was funded by a grant from The Water Institute and co-hosted by The
Water Institute and the School of Environment, Enterprise and
Development. During this period, Larry Swatuk tasked his Master of
Development Practice graduate class in Water and Security to write papers
generally focused on ‘the nexus’. These papers were presented in New York
in the fall of 2014 at the annual International Conference on Sustainable
Development, hosted by Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
The core of the chapters collected here are derived from this process.
Over time, however, some authors have come and gone, and others have
been invited to be part of the project. The main criterion for inclusion,
aside from quality, was a critical eye regarding received wisdoms about the
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
causes and effects of water resources access, use and management chal-
lenges. What the reader finds here is an eclectic mix of chapters, each of
which demonstrates what we call a ‘nexus sensibility’: how could sustain-
able, equitable and efficient resource use be otherwise? This sensibility is
quite different from the nexus being discussed at high-level forums such
as that held annually in Davos, Switzerland. Indeed, we remain quite skep-
tical of this ‘nexus’, which appears to us as yet another attempt to com-
modify nature at a grand scale (see, in particular, Chap. 1 and the
Afterword). In the three years since the Waterloo meeting, there has been
a great deal said and published about ‘the nexus’. We hope that this col-
lection helps further debate and discussion, not only about the water-
energy- food-climate-security nexus but about the most appropriate ways
and means for governing and managing the world’s resources for just and
sustainable ends as well.
The co-editors would like to thank The Water Institute for their ongo-
ing and generous support of this project. We also thank Marion Brown,
Karen Robertson and Marina Jozipovic for their assistance with the
Waterloo meeting and the good people at SOAS, IDS and the STEPS
Centre for initiating this exercise. Larry Swatuk would also like to thank
Corrine Cash for agreeing to participate as the co-editor. Editing a collec-
tion is never easy, especially one with more than 20 authors! He hopes that
this is just the beginning of many joint projects. Corrine Cash would like
to thank Larry Swatuk for the invitation and, on behalf of both of them,
also thank Timothy M. Shaw, Christina Brian and James Safford for their
encouragement and assistance in bringing this manuscript to completion.
Waterloo, ON, Canada Larry A. Swatuk
Antigonish, NS, Canada Corrine M. Cash
c
ontents
1 Perspectives on the Nexus: Water, Energy and Food
Security in an Era of Climate Change 1
Larry A. Swatuk and Corrine Cash
2 Water, Energy and Food: The Problematic Aspects
of the Transition from ‘Silo Approach’ to ‘Nexus
Approach’ in the Arab Region 15
Maha Al-Zu’bi and Noel Keough
3 Natural Capital Accounting and Ecosystem Services
Within the Water–Energy–Food Nexus: Local and 
Regional Contexts 63
Natasha Tang Kai
4 Pigs, Prawns and Power Houses: Politics in Water
Resources Management 79
K. M. Jensen, R. B. Lange, and J. C. Refsgaard
5 Mitigating the Korle Lagoon Ecological Pollution
Problem in Accra, Ghana, Through a Framework
for Urban Management of the Environment 117
Jeffrey Squire
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 La Plata River Basin: The Production of Scale in 
South American Hydropolitics 135
Luis Paulo Batista da Silva
7 The Social Flows of Water in the Global South:
Recognizing the Water-Gender-Health ‘Nexus’ 163
Amanda Leo, Elizabeth Lougheed, Larry A. Swatuk,
and Joanna Fatch
8 Water as Threat and Solution: Improving Health
Outcomes in Developing Country Contexts 187
Ashlea Weber, Jodi Baker, Lisa Gaudry, and Larry A.
Swatuk
9 Household Water Insecurity in Different Settlement
Categories of Ngamiland, Botswana 207
Krasposy Kujinga, Cornelis Vanderpost, Gagoitseope
Mmopelwa, and Wellington R. L. Masamba
10 Evolution or Illusion? The Okavango Delta 
Management Planning Process Versus the Conventional
Planning System in the Face of Climate Change and 
Variability in Botswana 237
Lapologang Magole and Phemo K. Kgomotso
11 Evaluating an Agri-Environmental Network and 
Its Role in Collaborative Problem-Solving 261
Hugh Simpson, Rob de Loë, and David Rudolph
12 The New Green Revolution: Enhancing Rainfed
Agriculture for Food and Nutrition Security in 
Eastern Africa 305
Adi Dunkelman, Meghann Kerr, and Larry A. Swatuk
CONTENT S ix
13 Afterward: Closing Thoughts on the Water–Food–
Energy–Climate Nexus 325
Richard A. Matthew
Index 333