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Governance of the water-energy-food nexus: insights from four infrastructure projects in the Lower Mekong Basin
Sustainability Science ( IF 6 ) Pub Date : 2020-01-22 , DOI: 10.1007/s11625-019-00779-5
Louis Lebel , Andrea Haefner , Claudia Pahl-Wostl , Anik Baduri

The social relations and biophysical flows that link water, food, and energy systems are said to form a ‘nexus’. Efforts to steer or otherwise exert influence on decisions that impact upon these nexus links, including to ignore them, take place at multiple levels, vary in complexity, and have implications for who benefits and who is burdened by those relations and flows. This paper examines how nexus links have been governed, using four medium- to large-scale water infrastructure projects in Laos and Thailand as probes into problematic issues of coordination, anticipation, inclusion, and attribution. Project documents, media reports, and published analyses were coded to extract information about nexus links, narratives, and decisions. Nexus interactions were summarized using a novel symbolic notation and then classified along a scale of increasing structural complexity as pairs, chains, and loops. The key finding from the analysis of the four projects was that nexus governance was fragmented, reactive, exclusive, and opaque. Coordination among ministries was limited with inter-ministerial bodies, and integrated development plans ineffective at guiding project design or operation decisions in the presence of bureaucratic competition. Anticipation of cross-sectoral concerns was rare, despite scope to identify them early in feasibility studies, and assessment activities; instead they were only acknowledged after public pressure. Inclusion of the needs of vulnerable and affected groups was limited, although poverty alleviation, and other social benefits were a significant element in project justification narratives. Attribution of responsibility was difficult as many key decisions took place behind closed doors, while project information was withheld, raising further governance issues of transparency and accountability. Structural complexity in the nexus links made addressing governance problems even more challenging.

中文翻译:

水-能源-食品关系的治理:来自湄公河下游盆地四个基础设施项目的见解

连接水,食物和能源系统的社会关系和生物物理流被称为“联系”。努力引导或以其他方式影响影响这些联系的决定,包括无视它们,发生在多个层次上,复杂程度各异,并对那些关系和流程的受益人和负担有影响。本文使用老挝和泰国的四个中大型水基础设施项目,探讨了协调关系的预期问题,协调,预期,包容和归因问题,探讨了如何管理联系。对项目文档,媒体报告和已发布的分析进行了编码,以提取有关链接,叙述和决策的信息。Nexus交互使用一种新颖的符号表示法进行了汇总,然后按照结构复杂性不断增加的规模分为对,链和环。从对这四个项目的分析中得出的主要发现是,联系治理是分散的,被动的,排他的和不透明的。部委之间的协调仅限于部委之间的机构,在存在官僚竞争的情况下,综合发展计划无法有效指导项目设计或运营决策。尽管有可能在可行性研究和评估活动中及早发现这些问题,但很少有跨部门问题的预见。相反,他们只是在公众压力下才被承认。尽管减轻贫困,其他社会效益是项目论证叙​​述中的重要元素。由于许多关键的决定是秘密地进行的,因此责任的分配是困难的,而项目信息却被保留下来,进一步提高了透明度和问责制的治理问题。链接中的结构复杂性使得解决治理问题变得更具挑战性。
更新日期:2020-01-22
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