Abstract
In today’s world, rising populations and growing economies have led to an ever-increasing demand for water, for domestic, industrial, and agricultural purposes. This water stress is more acutely felt in the global south which is experiencing a much more rapid rate of development than the rest of the world. Africa, in particular, is the fastest growing region of the globe as it undergoes a population explosion and an economic boom. In addition, the region is also one of the most vulnerable in terms of adverse impacts of climate change, sea-level rise, flooding, and drought. This perfect storm of water-related challenges is exacerbated by poor management, placing the continent in dire need of new and efficient approaches toward managing its resource. This chapter examines the WEF nexus from an African perspective, presenting the WEF nexus approach as a key driver for sustainable development in the region. Drawing from research carried out as part of the EU Horizon 2020-funded DAFNE project, the chapter goes on to describe a model for Economic Developments for the WEF nexus at river basin scale and its incorporation into a Decision Analytic Framework that integrates environmental, socio-cultural, legal, and policy dimensions of the WEF nexus.
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Notes
- 1.
H2020 DAFNE (project Grant: #690268)—Deliverable 4.5: Integrated framework of models for social, economic, and institutional developments.
- 2.
The Analytical definition of the models is also presented in H2020 DAFNE (project Grant: #690268)—Deliverables D4.1 and D4.6 (Models of Economic Development in the Zambezi River Basic and the Omo-Turkana Basin, respectively).
- 3.
For example, focusing of the underlying countries included in the Zambesi river basin (ZRB) and using data from AfDB, OECD, UNDP (2017a, 2017b), the share of Mining and Quarrying sector to National GDP for 2015 was 23.6%, 19.6%, 5.6%, 13.7%, 4.4%, 13.4%, and 9.5% for Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, respectively.
- 4.
For ZRB case study, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are considered as the upstream countries, while Mozambique is considered as the downstream country. For OZB, upstream and downstream countries are considered as Ethiopia and Kenya, respectively.
- 5.
A complete list of all variables we use as instruments in the regressions, can be found in H2020 DAFNE (project Grant: #690268) –D4.1 and D4.6 (Models of Economic Development in the Zambezi River Basic and the Omo-Turkana Basin respectively).
- 6.
SDG Indicators, https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/indicators-list/
- 7.
H2020 DAFNE (project Grant: #690268)—D4.5 Integrated framework of models for social, economic and institutional developments.
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Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Decision Analytic Framework to explore the water-energy-food nexus in complex transboundary water resource systems of fast-developing countries (DAFNE) project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 690268.
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Akinsete, E., Koundouri, P., Landis, C. (2022). Modeling the WEF Nexus to Support Sustainable Development: An African Case. In: Cavalli, L., Vergalli, S. (eds) Connecting the Sustainable Development Goals: The WEF Nexus. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01336-2_8
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