Natural resource allocation and governance in the water-energy-food nexus: an analytical framework

Abstract

The importance of ‘Natural Resources’ was submerged in the broader term ‘Economic Growth or Development’. It was since the last three decades of the twentieth century, that the former term gained its currency for being a factor that could thwart economic progress and place human civilisation at peril. As a reaction, increased attention is given to natural resources in academic, business, and policy arenas. Conceptualising ‘Governance’ Focusing on a subset of natural resources namely-Water, Energy, and Food, this study framed its objectives surrounding their governance. As the resources themselves are, governance as a process and outcome are also linked across the resources. To avoid ambiguity about the complexity, the mapping of governance arrangements to the resources is dealt with at first. For this to happen, conceptualising ‘Governance’ is the key. The means and ends of governance are abstracted from the Earth System Governance (ESG) scholarship.