Water-Energy-Food in the Context of Climate Change

Even though the bottom half of South African households spend  30–50% of their income on food, one quarter of South African children aged 0-5 are stunted due to malnutrition. This is just one example of how the interaction of the water, food, and energy systems with the economy and the global environment impact people. They sit at the heart of Southern Africa’s current challenges. To complicate this picture, energy and food production are the dominant sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

This work stream will assess this complicated interacting food, energy, and water system nexus to provide potential solutions to regional challenges and combat climate change. This will mean special attention will be paid to opportunities to solve these crises with green investments and renewable energy sources.

A non-sectoral approach

One of the novel aspects of this work stream is that it engages with other work streams to better align food and agriculture policies with employment and social protection policies. This approach differs from a previous understanding that solutions to energy issues, or water issues, could be applied to single sectors. Solutions are better applied, and more relevant to policymakers, holistically —water, energy, malnutrition, and health and wellbeing are all interconnected issues that also impact job creation, the economy, etc.

Advancements in research

Phase I of this work stream saw the development of SATIM-GE, a linked energy–economy-wide model, for the analysis of energy policies. Phase II will build on this success and develop an integrated agriculture/food/water-CGE model for exploring different policy issues in food and agriculture, land reform, and water conservation. These models will facilitate research that can lead to realistic strategies for policy implementation in a context of climate change.

News
SA-TIED
Since 2013, the Government of South Africa, IFPRI researchers, and partners have collaborated to assess the role of water infrastructure in adapting to potential climate change impacts. The findings and recommendations of this research have...
March 2022
Climate and energy
News
SA-TIED
To showcase key lessons from SA-TIED phase I, the programme produced a series of eight videos that feature the major accomplishments from each of the six work streams and the data lab. Watch all eight...
February 2022
Enterprise development
Public revenue
Labour market and inequality
Macro-fiscal analysis
Climate and energy
Reform implementation
Phase 1 regional growth
Report
SA-TIED
This report is a summary of the SA-TIED programme’s major research contributions to the policy environment. These contributions are not policy proposals, but are meant to inform the policymaking process and fill important gaps in...
January 2022
Enterprise development
Public revenue
Macro-fiscal analysis
Labour market and inequality
Climate and energy
Phase 1 regional growth
Working paper
Dolapo Enahoro, Jason Sircely, Randall B. Boone, Stephen Oloo, Adam M. Komarek, Sirak Bahta, Mario Herrero, Karl M. Rich
The demand for livestock-derived foods has steadily grown over the past decades and rising incomes and human populations are expected to see demand further increase. It is unclear if current livestock feed resources are adequately...
June 2021
Climate and energy
Working paper
Raphael Payet-Burin and Kenneth Strzepek
Analyses for water infrastructure investment planning must consider the interdependencies of local and regional water, energy, food, and environmental systems. This highly complex decision problem requires decision support tools to objectively determine the multi-sector economic...
May 2021
Climate and energy
In the media
SA-TIED
During a speech to parliament on Thursday, South Africa’s Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, discussed the important work being carried out by the Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development (SA-TIED) programme. Mboweni highlighted the achievements...
May 2021
Enterprise development
Public revenue
Labour market and inequality
Macro-fiscal analysis
Climate and energy
Reform implementation
Working paper
Chuma Innocent Mbaleki
This study employs an autoregressive distributed lag model to investigate the long-run and short-run economic growth impacts of the public service wage bill in South Africa. The annual time series data used ranges from 1983...
May 2021
Climate and energy
Working paper
Bruno Merven, Faaiqa Hartley, Andrew Marquard, Fadiel Ahjum, Jesse Burton, Alison Hughes, Gregory Ireland, Bryce McCall and Jules Schers
The Paris Agreement calls for a reduction in global emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2oC (above preindustrial levels), while pursuing the means to limit the increase to 1.5oC. This...
May 2021
Climate and energy
Working paper
Joan Halstein
This paper simulates the long-term implications of skilled labour emigration for South Africa, using a recursive dynamic general equilibrium framework. It examines the effects of skilled emigration with or without offsetting measures, specifically the projected...
April 2021
Climate and energy
News
SA-TIED
During the months of April, May, and June, the SA-TIED programme will host six online policy dialogues as part of our SA-TIED Dialogues – Research into Policy series. As phase one of the SA-TIED programme...
March 2021
Enterprise development
Public revenue
Labour market and inequality
Macro-fiscal analysis
Climate and energy
Reform implementation
Working paper
Leonard le Roux and Johanna Choumert-Nkolo
Despite recent progress, energy poverty remains pervasive in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This challenge is generally more severe in rural areas. However, rapid urbanization adds a significant challenge to often under-capacitated urban local authorities that struggle...
February 2021
Climate and energy
Working paper
Faaiqa Hartley, Sherwin Gabriel, James Cullis and Channing Arndt
Climate change poses a serious threat to many countries, particularly to developing countries, which often have large sections of the population without resources to adapt to changes in their environment. One of the key ways...
February 2021
Climate and energy
Working paper
Tatenda Lysias Magodora
The agricultural sector has remained under threat from climate change despite significant efforts to combat this problem. There is evidence of existing climate change impacts on maize production in South Africa. No meta-analysis was done...
October 2020
Climate and energy
Working paper
Bernard Tembo, Sydney Sihubwa, Ignatius Masilokwa, Mulima Nyambe-Mubanga
This study uses an integrated approach to analyse the impacts of climate change on Zambia’s electricity supply and general economy, considering two global climate policy scenarios: Unconstrained emissions (UCE), without effective policies to limit emissions...
September 2020
Climate and energy