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Advancing technical WEF models, tools and frameworks for decision making at multiple scales The group participants highlighted that WEF models, tools and frameworks will work for the decision makers when the data which is going to be used for modelling is accurate and trust is established from the source of data. From the practical perspective, WEF models are becoming more complex, expanding its narrative, and require whole institutions to code and run them. This induces high requirements to a technical background of the personnel, working with WEF models, and also a technical background of th... Read moree policy-related personnel, who will be analyzing the results. Group indicated that most of the staff based in the provinces, districts and local on-farm irrigation systems requires to go through the trainings. There is a need in investing in stakeholders and building relevant knowledge and understanding of the importance of the WEF framework. The stakeholder community working under the WEF framework needs to have a clear sense of ownership of the process (“understand and accept it”) and be actively involved throughout its implementation in order to reach necessary results. The WEF process is still at its preliminary stage of application and none of the existing stakeholders in the region have the power to trigger its wider application. So, finding that entry point both in Uzbekistan and in the region would stimulate the wider acceptance of WEF. Read less

Policy coherence and institutional coordination in water, food, energy and climate change that operationalize the WEF nexus It has been concluded that there are exist relevant institutions and organizations at the regional and national level who shall consider WEF nexus in their operations. One of such structure at the regional level is considered International Fund for saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). However, IFAS hasn’t fully integrated the full competencies for the sectoral cooperation. This organization shall and can unite different sectors and develop regional WEF nexus programs and initiat... Read moreives. Setting correctly at the Regional level policy coherence and institutional coordination provides good conditions to move it at the national levels. Participants has also highlighted the role of academic and research institutions who generates knowledge for policy through applied research. There has been also stressed importance of bringing private sector, specifically bilateral interstate projects conducted by private companies or consortia. It was admitted that existing structures, they undergo challenges related to the fact that currently developed plans for the management for the incorporating WEF nexus are merrily of national level and focused on national interest. Regional programs like the program for the basin of the Aral Sea is still rather sectoral and has only limited nexus elements. Also, the problem of the original programs is that they are developed mainly by water and ecology expert without referring to knowledge from other sectors like energy and agriculture. To overcome these challenges there is a need for ranging more regional awareness at the level of decision makers about the need of WEF nexus approaches. Also, there's the need for more knowledge to support the limited available human resources to implement such an approach to develop long term plans. Participants of the session highlighted that currently WEF nexus mainly applied within on-going projects and working groups on WEF nexus also established and promoted by donor supported projects. This donor supported initiatives are not sustainable in the long run and there is a need stronger engagement from Central Asian government representatives and they should feel that outcomes of WEF nexus improve inter-sectoral cooperation and help to develop coordinated policies on WEF nexus at national and regional level in Central Asia. There is a need to create enabling environment, formal and informal platforms to discuss WEF nexus at national and regional level and highlight it’s importance via mass media in a nutshell publicize nexus to maximum extent. Regional and International organizations together with development partners should play important role in this process in upcoming years. It was a highlighted and that's there is a need for systematic capacity building which the participating organizations could offer. Secondly there is a need for platforms for leading discussion on the intergovernmental and multi stakeholder levels where participating institutions interest to facilitate. Read less

Climate change impacts on water and food security Central Asia is a region that is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change – which is negatively affecting the water, agriculture, energy, trade, health, environment, and other sectors. Transitioning from competition among sectors to cooperation – including across the water-energy-food nexus - will be a vital part of the story of food system transformation in the region. Global and regional climatic changes are directly affecting the hydrological regime of river flow and food security in Central Asia. The group has concluded that t... Read moreaking into account climate change, there is required to develop regional rational water resource use as well as water protection concept. It is recommended to develop and adopt water, food, energy and environmental doctrines of Central Asia in the context of climate change. There is strong necessity to develop cooperation between national and regional research and academic institutions in the field of climate change. Taking into account COVID 19, it is necessary to improve the program "Food security and nutrition" in all countries of Central Asia. Strong attention should be directed towards introduction of water-saving technologies (drip, sprinkling, subsurface and other micro-irrigation methods) for irrigation of agricultural crops; It is necessary to develop regional cooperation on prevention of natural disasters (mudflows, floods, etc.) and protection of water bodies; Develop joint research programs on intensive technologies, the creation of drought-resistant crops, agricultural diversification, rotational water use and other innovative approaches for the rational use of water and land resources; It is necessary to create a unified database platform (DB) and develop an information system. These aspects have been proposed by the members of the group and ways in which progress could be assessed, it has been indicated necessity to develop and implement a monitoring system to assess the actions taken. Read less

Moving towards low carbon energy for food production Participants agreed on the importance of completing projects that expand low carbon irrigation (e.g. gravity and solar irrigation, repairing inefficient infrastructure), carried out by government/development organizations like the World Bank with research institution support. Stakeholders should focus more on knowledge/capacity building among farmers who may not see immediate benefits of implementing low carbon technologies. Finally, governments/stakeholders should push for conservation farming techniques to reduce agricultural emissions acr... Read moreoss the board. The process of transitioning to low-carbon agriculture, especially where infrastructure improvements are needed, will be expensive. Therefore, a huge investment push is needed. Read less

Water scarcity presents one of the greatest challenge for the region as its population grows so does the need to create more jobs, produce more food, more energy - yet water resources are limited. It is negatively affecting the agriculture, energy, health, environment and other sectors, further exacerbated by the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, climate change and population increases will put additional stress on the region’s water resources - with 10 to 30% less water available in the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers by 2050. Managing the water risks in the food system is ... Read moregoing to be of highest priority in the future for food system of Central Asia. Rising temperatures will pose major challenges for the region's major crops such as wheat, rice, and cotton, as well as challenging research on new crop varieties and crop production systems. The production of relatively low-income crops such as cotton and wheat will become less profitable due to high transportation costs. The participants of the dialogue stressed that the WEF nexus approach requires a shared vision for water and food security in the Central Asian region, and one that is facilitated by improved policy coherence and institutional coordination. Stronger collaboration and cooperation across and between governments and its multiple tiers is needed to achieve this, along with strengthening policy synergies with the private sector and civil society. The strong interdependency between water, energy, food and climate change in arid and semi-arid regions such as Central Asia calls for robust interventions, i.e. an approach that integrates management and governance across sectors, and where conventional policy and decision-making in ‘silos’ gives way to an approach that reduces tradeoffs and builds synergies across sectors in line with the global UN SDGs and climate targets. There is required to develop the long term regional limited planning for water allocation between sectors. Regional programs like the regional program for the basin of the Aral Sea is still rather sectoral and has only limited nexus elements. Also, the problem of the original programs is that they are developed mainly by water and ecology experts without referring to knowledge from other sectors like energy and agriculture. There is a need to create enabling environment, formal and informal platforms to discuss WEF nexus at national and regional level and highlight its importance via mass media in a nutshell publicize nexus to maximum extent. Regional and International organizations together with development partners should play important role in this process in upcoming years. Participants agreed that governments, researchers, and development institutions should focus more effort into capacity/knowledge building for farmers who might benefit from implementing low carbon technologies in their production, as well as greater investment in the sector. Because such technologies are new and may involve expensive initial implementation, there is hesitation to adopt, but in the long run such technologies could improve water and energy efficiency while improving farm-level outcomes. Additionally, stakeholders should push for the implementation of conservation farming policies, which will result in better land use while reducing emissions. For WEF Nexus approaches to result in better socio-economic outcomes, first, national and research institutions should put more effort into disseminating and implementing research findings in collaboration with government and with support from international research/education organizations. For example, data on water management could greatly improve through micro-level assessments (e.g. household surveys), and tools/models could be developed so policy making entities have a greater base of evidence. Additionally, with help from the research sector, governments should develop national strategies and legal frameworks for developing bioeconomy in the region, which currently do not exist. Finding ways to manage the water-energy-food nexus will be key then in ensuring a sustainable supply of water to the food system. Read less

Central Asia is considered one of the dynamic growing and developing region in the world. Population growth, socio-economic development, climate change, hydropower development as well as changing consumption patterns of the population contribute to increased demand for water, energy and food. Water scarcity presents one of the greatest challenges for the region as its population grows so does the need to create more jobs, produce more food, more energy - yet water resources are limited. Irrigated agriculture consumes approximately 80% of all abstracted water in Central Asian countries. The reg... Read moreion is well known for its history of mismanagement of water, energy, and land resources that have had widely publicized negative effects on water availability throughout the region. The Aral Sea, a large inland lake, almost disappeared as a result of diverting large portions of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya River flows to expand irrigated agriculture (due to in-efficient irrigation and irrational cropping pattern). Balancing the sectoral needs for agricultural production and the generation of energy through hydropower is challenging, as the transboundary water flow is disrupted. Climate change and population increases will put additional stress on the region’s water resources with 10 to 30% less water available in the aforementioned rivers by 2050. Solutions for sustainable food production through irrigated agriculture require a systemic approach to assess benefits and trade-offs across sectors. Here, the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus has become an important concept in natural resource management. It has been conceptualized to analyze linkages and trade-offs between the three sectors, across temporal and spatial scales. Taking into account, numerous challenges facing Central Asian countries to achieve security in all three sectors of WEF, application of a 'Nexus' approach allows for mutually beneficial responses that are based on an understanding of synergies between water, energy and agricultural systems policies and practices. This regional dialogue therefore seek to unpack the questions: how can food systems be localized and transformed in a water-constrained region such as Central Asia in a manner that acknowledges WEF nexus linkages in climate uncertainty? The UN Food Systems Summit Central Asia dialogue highlighted seven key thematic areas on which participants were required to engage in an interactive manner that allowed for small group discussion, collective brainstorming, and agenda-setting. The thematic areas covered by breakout groups were: 1) Moving towards low carbon energy for food production; 2) Climate change impacts on water and food security; 3) Policy coherence and institutional coordination in water, food, energy and climate change that operationalize the WEF nexus; 4) Advancing technical WEF models, tools and frameworks for decision making at multiple scales; 5) Enhancing resilience of water system across multi-sector (agriculture, domestic, industry and environment) demands; 6) Socio-Economic Benefits of WEF Nexus and Community approaches to operationalize the WEF nexus. Expected key outcome of this dialogue was getting involved and sharing the views of Central Asian stakeholders on sustainable irrigated foods systems transformation and importance of WEF nexus under climate uncertainties. Reaching a common understanding of the challenges and finding local solutions to the challenges facing food security/water systems transformation along with attendant issues of water security for a range of other sectors were explored. Read less

• Mitigation against the unintended consequences of data circulation and use, and digital misuse, possibly forms a risk for agricultural producers. • Proposing inclusive digital solutions means first and foremost ensuring that the digital infrastructure is universally accessible. • One size does not fit all. There is a need to respect local needs, capacity, particularly in developing geographies. • Private sector is not viewed as a partner. It can be perceived as too focused on capital or profit whereas anti-profit view is a component of culture, research community, and ecosystems. The... Read morese need to be bridged to get effective innovation happening. • Policies can sometimes be the obstacle, not the pace of innovation or willingness of companies to change. Read less

• Societal and Institutional Innovations to build leadership and improve scale Multistakeholder partnerships are key. When all stakeholders are engaged, then the incentive structure of different agents is distinct and becomes better discernible. Donor coordination in developing countries is also key, otherwise different donors push different solutions, none of which become possible to take to scale so we must identify locally those projects that would benefit most from being scaled up. Donor coordination in developing countries is also key. Create spaces for transparent dialogues between far... Read moremers, consumers and authorities. Consumers need to be educated on the innovations used and the science behind everything to trust the farmers. Systems to provide data for smallholders to allow them to aggregate to sell products and export are also essential. Farm clustering and consolidation through which farmers are encouraged to reduce operation costs and increase incomes. While innovations are often triggered by societal stimulations, governments have a role to play in providing the guarantees and financial safety nets that investors require. Each innovation requires a support structure. Read less

• Building National and Regional Innovation Ecosystems There is a need for frameworks that involve policy incentives, smart partnerships, farmer communities especially in the design process of innovations and investment. Financing schemes have to be tri-partite to be measurable and instead of providing funding to individual farmers, cooperatives should be formed and given access to these funds. Blended finance is essential to drive innovation. This would guarantee knowledge and capacity sharing. Also, there is a need to harmonize the risk approval process at national, regional and even globa... Read morel levels in order to speed up dissemination of information and not reinvent the regulatory approval wheel each time. Different regulatory bodies must build a level of trust with each other. Bringing together partners at a regional and global level is promising. We can promote the creation of a food “Silicon Valley” which will attract multidisciplinary talent, operate efficiently and promote out-of-the-box thinking. The formation of national and regional innovation hubs will also promote cross-pollination of ideas and technology. These hubs enable active knowledge transfer between researchers, business, government and farmers. Read less

• Scientific and Technological Innovation There is a need for “supply chain thinking” in inclusive science and technology innovation. This must go from researchers and innovators all the way to consumers. We need to understand how science and technology impacts labour so that those people affected can be trained to acquire the necessary new skills. Labour, price and access must be taken into consideration when looking at scientific and technological innovation. Cooperation and collaboration is critical. Government, science and industry need to come together and they must engage with the ... Read morefarming community to address current issues. Enabling policies and increased funding for national research institutions will enhance output. Private research institutes and foundations should connect to carry out more research in an accountable manner and with all due diligence. Research must be demand-driven. Recognize the importance of establishing platforms with an inclusive atmosphere and a multidisciplinary approach in pre-competitive spaces such as innovation hubs. Stakeholders, such as farmers, students, government representatives, NGOs, and companies, can be brought in early to see the development and potential of innovations which in turn works to build trust among them. Read less

• Data and Digital Systems In order to advance data and digital systems innovation, there is a need first of all for user-centered innovation – innovation generated from the ordinary man’s needs and then developed by the technical person for the market. This means that at the interim stages of innovation development, the potential users must be involved directly so it is better placed to meet reality and offers a human-centered design. Such innovations must be adapted to the local user’s language, but end users must also have some capacity development to understand the technologies ava... Read moreilable. Digital SPS tools help move agricultural products along the value chain across borders. Blockchain tools can be useful, for example, in digitalizing seed supply chains. The private sector needs to collaborate as data competition impedes effective collaboration. Data sharing willingness/capacity and interoperability were big impediments – on the part of farming communities adopting these innovations. We must develop continental, regional and country frameworks for agricultural digitalization with a component on internal & external data sharing. Read less

• Data and Digital Systems Focus on accessibility and addressing barriers to adoption – cost, communication, skill set, specificity of local and regional context. Investment in broadband infrastructure to bring the technology to those that need it. Need to look at innovation from the lens of underrepresented populations (youth, gender, indigenous populations). A solution – Public investment in rural connectivity and communication platforms. Availability of platforms to disseminate data (smart phones, infrastructure) to food system actions in an efficient manner. We need to address the di... Read moregital divide. The poor, disadvantaged communities need access to digitalization – from smart phones to digital devices/smart cards etc that can help them receive market access (e,g, in determining payment for environmental services). • Scientific and Technological Innovation Communication of technology to smallholder farmers calls for improved infrastructure. Application of science is the issue. Issues of language and communication, extension service, field experiments, funding and government support is needed. There needs to be inclusion, active engagement, collaboration, and empowering of the users including youth, women, and local communities/beneficiaries. A need for a Platform that brings different stakeholders together and for broader interactions and transparency in implementing solutions. We need to demystify the sector and the innovation that is happening, allow people to see and understand it. Bring policy-makers to the innovators. • Building National and Regional Innovation Ecosystems There must be a policy environment that enables innovation to come to forefront and government/institutional leadership. The role start-ups play is of great value. For instance, one large multi-national works closely with start-ups on packaging. ‘2good2 go’ aims at opening up food baskets to consumers, help consumers explaining the ‘best before date’ labelling, to reduce food waste. Youth are central to innovation and more programs are needs for students and to inspire youth globally to work in food systems. Shortened value chains are essential. We need to deliver directly to the tables of consumers and educate consumers on locally available products. Innovation is essential to getting Direct to Table. A comprehensive approach to the whole value chain is needed, in order to guide the consumers to the choices, and also link it to the social protection programmes in order not to leave anyone behind. Lack of capacity, both in companies but also within overnments, is a problem. There is a need for a more catalytic change for food testing, food marketing etc. We need to have all that in the countries, especially, low income countries. The need for intensifying of public and private partnerships to put forward the agenda through investment across multiple areas and aspects and innovating the ways where the investment is redirected, e.g. packaging etc. is needed. The investments of governments in healthcare is difficult to change, but momentum is needed in order to shift the focus to “health for care” instead of “healthcare", as food is really impacting the health of the population. • Societal and Institutional Innovations to build Leadership and Improve Scale Learning and sharing best practices will contribute to scalability. Regional Economic Commissions have a role and should be doing more. We need to discuss issues of other key sectors: livestock, fisheries, forestry. Also there is a need for interconnection among all the components and at all levels Read less

Innovation has been identified as a cross cutting lever of change for the Food Systems Summit. Communities of interest were grouped around the following during the dialogue: • Carbon pricing & measuring • Precision agriculture • Renewables • Food loss and waste • Oceans/Horticulture/Livestock/Agroforestry/Crops • Nutrition • Access to Market, especially for SMEs • Innovative food product development Some challenges explored include: • Scaling the technology adoption curve especially on last mile delivery for farmers and consumers, to positively impact food systems. • Bu... Read moreilding innovation ecosystems to incentivize, adapt and scale opportunities to enable food systems transformation, bring about systemic unlocks and mitigate against unintended consequences. • Supporting the growth of business innovation to meet the needs of different types of stakeholders and lead to food systems transformation The key issues which kept resurfacing were: • Data sharing and transparency: In order to avoid duplication of systems and data, data-sharing should be encouraged. Systems should also be transparent so as to build trust especially among farmer communities. Data interoperability is imperative. • Infrastructure: More investment in communication infrastructure is needed so no one is left behind. • Innovation hubs: Public and private sectors need to create an enabling ecosystem for innovation to thrive. • Policies: Governments and regional organisations need to set up innovation policies which will serve as catalysts and frameworks for innovative technology • Collaboration: Innovators must work with the players on the ground who would use the technology, such as farmers or consumers, during the innovation process. This will help innovations meet real needs as well as guide innovators on how to make it user-friendly. Read less