A Nexus Approach to the Post-2015 Agenda: Formulating Integrated Water, Energy, and Food SDGs

Abstract

While the MDGs aimed to lift people out of poverty, the SDGs aim to keep them out of poverty by ensuring that development is both socially and environmentally sustainable. To achieve this, a “nexus” approach that integrates goals across sectors, makes the SDGs more cost-effective and efficient, reduces the risk that SDG actions will undermine one another, and ensures sustainable resource use is necessary. This paper aims to support the SDGs’ integration by showing how cross-sectoral interactions can be approached through examples from the water-energy-food nexus.