An Integrated Approach to Peace and Resource Security

Introduction

Since the publication of Our Common Future (WCED, 1987) and Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992), a key question in the ongoing discussion of human development has been whether humankind can live in a peaceful, secure, and prosperous manner while relying on existing resources and life support systems in a rapidly changing world. In that discussion, the management and allocation of water, energy, land, and food resources is critical since unprecedented demands of these resources are expected over the next 50 years due to rapid population, urbanization, and economic growth worldwide (Ferroukhi et al., 2015) and climate-related risks (Woetzel et al., 2020). The economic crisis of 2008 and subsequent recession, the worldwide increase in food and energy prices starting in 2007, and the global pandemic and unrest of 2020 have added confusion and uncertainty about how to intervene appropriately in the multiple evolving systems that contribute to resource security.

The traditional way of addressing the security of water, energy, land, and food resources has been to consider all four sectors in isolation (i.e., as decoupled), regardless of whether one is interested in supply and demand, infrastructure planning and design, resource development, management, and allocation, and/or governance. Since 2011, however, there has been a new emphasis on understanding the interdependencies and relationships between two, three, or four of these sectors. It is now standard practice in the development literature to read about the water-energy, food-energy-water (FEW), and the water-energy-land-food (WELF) nexus (UNU-INWEH, 2013). The concept of nexus thinking has become an integral part of human development's vernacular and has been advocated by various national and international organizations (World Economic Forum; Stockholm Environmental Institute, UNU-INWEH). In the publication titled Global Risks 2011, the World Economic Forum emphasized that a rapidly rising global population and growing prosperity are putting unsustainable pressures on resources. Demand for water, food, and energy is expected to rise by 30-50 percent in the next two decades, while economic disparities incentivize short-term responses in production and consumption that undermine long-term sustainability. Shortages could cause social and political instability, geopolitical conflict, and irreparable environmental damage. Any strategy that focuses on one part of the water-food-energy nexus without considering its interconnections risks serious unintended consequences. (WEF, 2011)

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs (SDSN, 2020) make explicit reference to food security (as part of Goal 2), energy security (as part of Goal 7), water security (as part of Goal 6), and protection of land and soil resources (as part of Goal 15). In addition to these goals and their respective targets, the SDGs consist of 13 other goals that, although they do not mention water, energy, food, and land explicitly, interact in one way or the other with these sectors through multiple implicit feedback loops and interactions that are still being explored (Weitz et al., 2014; Le Blanc, 2015; Nilsson et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2016; ICSU, 2017; Zelinka & Amadei, 2019a,b). The SDGs clearly acknowledge that addressing the FEW/WELF nexus requires an integrated perspective that considers the characteristics of each component of the nexus, the components' interconnectedness, and the characteristics of their linkages. Adopting an integrated perspective to sustainable development is more imperative than ever when addressing the dynamic of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (Mustafa, 2021) and in preventing a decline in human development as we enter the third decade of the 21^st century (UNDP, 2020).