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1. Coherent landscape planning
Coherent planning across water, energy, food, ecosystems and climate change is essential to achieve inherently cross-cutting
goals in each sector. Whilst mechanisms exist to promote policy integration, effective coordination and implementation are
limited by governance gaps. With the region’s countries planning to expand hydropower infrastructure and output, for instance,
optimising outcomes at the system scale rather than the project scale will be increasingly important. Criteria for prioritising
hydropower developments at the basin scale could include river connectivity, indigenous territories, mining concessions,
productive agricultural land, and deforestation and climate change scenarios.
2. Strengthen water governance
Weak water governance is a key barrier to horizontal and vertical coordination across water, energy and food sectors. Water
policymaking is highly fragmented within central governments and often decentralised with little vertical coordination. Weak
management by utility companies, poor quality infrastructure, and low water pricing are all challenges to water-use eficiency that can
be addressed by improving governance.
3. Improve monitoring systems
Water pollution from poor waste management and treatment, agricultural inputs such as nitrates, and the extractives industry is
a major threat to the region’s water security. Information on water quality is patchy, and better monitoring systems are needed to
identify issues and analyse interventions. Monitoring systems can also support eficient resource use and allocation in watersheds,
industries and households.
4. Quantify trade-offs
Accessible decision support tools that can help stakeholders to build future scenarios, identify policy responses, and quantify
the resulting economic, environmental and social trade-offs are needed to help decision-makers identify ‘quick wins’ and ‘low
regret’ options for optimising water, energy and food security. Analytical tools such as Water Evaluation and Planning WEAP
and Caribbean climate change risk and adaptation CCORAL are already being used by decision-makers in the region. However,
there is a need for tools that encompass the whole water-energy-
food nexus to ensure fully integrated outcomes.
5. Decouple agriculture from deforestation
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