Policy papers and recommendations
/ Environmental Peacebuilding
The twenty-first century confronts humanity with an unprecedented constellation of interrelated challenges and crises – environmental, economic, social, political, technological – that together demand far-reaching transformations in our modes of living, our societies and governance systems, and our ecological impacts on the planet.
Because these multiple crises are interconnected across countries and continents, sectors and scales – recently described through the notion of “polycrisis” – our responses must be interconnected as well.
Addressing them requires “nexus thinking”, recognizing the multiple interdependencies, trade-offs, and synergies across energy, water, and food systems, climate and ecological changes, socio-economic settings, and geo-political conflicts. It also demands “transformation thinking”, the capacity to reimagine and redesign systems so they transition from their current crisis trajectories toward sustainability and peace. Together, these two approaches form the foundation for the
Nexus Transformations framework explored in this paper.
This paper develops a new conceptual framework of Nexus Transformations to support regional sustainability and peacebuilding efforts. It hopes to make several contributions to how sustainability is perceived within the fields of security and peace studies and adjacent policy fields. At the same time, the paper will be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders concerned with the fundamental question of our age: how to contribute to transforming existing conflictual and detrimental systems into more stable and sustainable systems conducive to peaceful conditions – in our region and beyond.
First, the paper introduces two of the most prominent approaches in the academic study of sustainability and in the fields of environmental and climate policy: namely, Sustainability Transitions (ST) and Nexus approaches. It offers a brief and accessible introduction to the main concepts and themes of these two approaches – intended to researchers in security and peace studies, as well as to policymakers and practitioners working in post-conflict reconstruction or in sustainable development more broadly.
Second, the paper offers a conceptual yet practical synthesis of the Sustainability Transitions and Nexus approaches. Despite common concerns and potential synergies, these two influential approaches have, by and large, been addressed separately in the academic and policy literature. However, there are good reasons for combining them in different policy domains and in real world applications. We could think of their complementary qualities in a simple and practical way:
The Nexus approach is concerned with the interrelations between systems that require integration and transformation. It focuses on what to transform, and offers technical, infrastructural, and spatial insights. However, it lacks a theory of systemic change and a detailed understanding of institutional and social-economic dynamics shaping these systems. Sustainability Transitions offers such a theory of systemic change. It focuses on how to transform, and adds important organizational, institutional, social-economic, and temporal insights. But, so far, it mostly lacks the powerful interrelational outlook of the nexus that connects these distinct socio-technical systems in real places. To bridge this gap, the paper introduces an integrated framework of Nexus Transformations as a systematic way to address these interrelated questions of how to transform and what to transform.
Third, the Nexus Transformations framework offers an expanded and holistic articulation of nexus approaches, interconnecting the FEW nexus of food, energy, and water systems, critical at the urban scale, with the MORE nexus of regional mobility, economic, and ecological systems, and with the PLENTY nexus of security, prosperity, and peace within planetary boundaries. Nexus Transformations thus frames seemingly local and site-specific sustainable development challenges, including post-conflict reconstruction, as multi-level and multi-scale opportunities for systemic transformation.
To apply the Nexus Transformations framework and further specify the FEW-MORE-PLENTY path, the paper outlines a series of stages, considerations, and guiding questions. This is proposed as a roadmap to guide policy makers and practitioners in planning, shaping, and catalyzing multi-level sustainable transformations. In this way, the Nexus Transformations framework can be applied across diverse domains and scales of sustainable development, from integrated infrastructure, urban, and regional development, through post-conflict reconstruction, to the governance of transitions for living within planetary boundaries.
While the paper remains at a conceptual level, it connects to several recent Mitvim initiatives, including policy papers on a humanitarian strategy for Gaza and post-war reconstruction of the Gaza Region. It wishes to push further the definition and the ambition of reconstruction – as a profound systemic transformation towards sustainability and peace. This is relevant not just for Gaza, but across the Middle East and the planet at large. The hope, therefore, is that this paper, together with its predecessors, could open a set of discussions with partners across the region and globally, who are committed to the principles of transforming holistically from conflict and climate emergency towards sustainability and peace.
The paper is structured in the following way:
Section 1 summarizes key learnings from the Sustainability Transitions literature, including its Multi-Level Perspective that explains the transformation of socio-technical systems through the relations between niches, regimes, and landscapes. In particular, the section highlights both processes of innovation and destabilization of existing systems and its relevance in contexts of conflict, war, and reconstruction and in relation to urban environments and infrastructures.
Section 2 similarly presents key learnings from the Nexus literature, starting with the well-known Food–Energy–Water (FEW) Nexus and expanding to nexuses relevant to the urban and regional scale and to situations of conflict and peacebuilding, such as the HumanitarianDevelopment-Peace Nexus and the Climate–Conflict Nexus.
Section 3 then presents the main contribution of the paper, the Nexus Transformations framework, combining the insights and strengths of the two hitherto separate approaches. It offers a simplified FEWMORE-PLENTY roadmap: namely, how to proceed from FEW Transformations, which focus on the local scale and niche level, to MORE transformations, which expand the outlook to the regional scale and the regime level, finally reaching PLENTY Transformations, addressing planetary challenges at the global scale and the landscape level. This section also outlines the key stages and considerations for applying the Nexus Transformations framework.
Finally, the Conclusion suggests future directions to apply the Nexus Transformations framework, notably in the context of the post-war reconstruction of Gaza, in support of regional sustainability and peace.
