Financial challenges of the nexus: pathways for investment in water, energy and agriculture in the Arab world

The Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus is a development challenge in the Arab world, particularly in the ‘core nexus countries’ with low to mid-incomes in which limited water endowments permit agricultural production, such as Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Jordan. The WEF nexus is often conceptualized in mere technocratic terms, yet politics matter in the implementation of projects that address it. Internalizing hydrological externalities or leaving them as they are and financing them as a public good requires states whose capacities have been reduced as a result of neoliberal reform. The article explores five different pathways of how Arab countries could finance green growth projects ranging from regional financial markets to concessionary loans by funds from oil rich Gulf countries.