The Water-Energy -Food (WEF) nexus is a development challenge in the Arab world, particularly in the 'core nexus countries' with low to mid-incomes in which limited water endowments permit agricultural production, such as Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Jordan. The WEF nexus is often conceptualized in mere technocratic terms, yet politics matter in the implementation of projects that address it. Internalizing hydrological externalities or leaving them as they are and financing them as a public good requires states whose capacities have been reduced as a result of neoliberal reform. The article explores five different pathways of how Arab countries could finance green growth projects ranging from regional financial markets to concessionary loans by funds from oil rich Gulf countries.
Systems of producing, consuming, and distributing water, energy, and food involve trade-offs that are rarely explicitly considered by firms and policymakers. The idea of the water-energy-food “nexus” represents an attempt to formalize these trade-offs into decision-making processes. Multinational food and beverage firms operating in arid regions were early promoters of nexus approaches, followed by aid donors, consultancies, and international institutions seeking a new paradigm for resource management and development planning. The first generation of nexus research focused on quantitative input-output modeling to empirically demonstrate interdependencies and options for optimizing resource management. This chapter employs a different approach, analyzing institutional “problemsheds” that shape the implementation of nexus initiatives in arid regions of the United States, the Persian/Arabian Gulf, and China. Our analysis reveals how nexus approaches are conditioned by property rights regimes, economic growth strategies based on resource extraction, and the ability to externalize environmental costs to other regions and states.
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