Water Wheel July/Sept 2025: Wef Nexus

Abstract

Breaking the silos: WRC’s WEF nexus research transforms policy and practice Feature South Africa has quietly emerged as a global thought leader in one of the world’s most urgent conversations: how to secure the future of water, energy, and food. At the centre of this effort is the Water Research Commission (WRC), which has spent more than a decade pioneering the water– energy–food (WEF) nexus approach, a transformative way of tackling interconnected challenges that threaten livelihoods, economies, and ecosystems. Article by Sylvester Mpandeli, Stanley Liphadzi, and Luxon Nhamo. Research on the WEF nexus gained momentum in 2011 following the Bonn 2011 Conference, where it was introduced by the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) (Hoff, 2011). This marked the realisation that the current exploitation and silo-based management of the three sectors was unsustainable, as resources were depleting and degrading at an alarming rate (UNGA, 2015).

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