ABSTRACT
Taking an integrated system approach to the management of WEF resources is widely supported. This approach is essential in India, China and Japan where the security of these resources has been jeopardised by decades of economic development. In the last 20 years, their economic growth, rapid urbanisation and change in consumption patterns have come at a heavy cost to people’s health, livelihoods and resulted in large-scale resources degradation and often irreversible modification of ecosystems. India and China, the world’s most populous countries have continued to drive the demand for water, energy and food, whereas Japan’s unprecedented period of population decline faces less of a challenge with population but remains seriously exposed due to poor natural capital assets (i.e., low self-sufficiency of natural resources) and increased demands for energy. There is a strong case to be made that in countries that are energy-intensive, water and food deficient and the world’s most economically dynamic, a WEF nexus approach is relevant. By exploring India’s proposed Green Deal, China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) and Japan’s green growth strategy, this chapter aims to apply nexus thinking and use the WEF concept as an iterative process of learning to highlight the problems inherent in operationalising cross-sectoral policy in practice. By providing a platform to talk about interrelations, this chapter explores how the WEF nexus can be used as a vehicle to facilitate change, help bridge the political and policy divide, promote and encourage stakeholder engagements and assess different pathways anchored on pressing, cross-cutting issues. The WEF approach can enable common ground to emerge, and highlight the role of actors and how decisions should be made; in sum highlight the patterns of association that often characterise their participation in the study of public policy today.
