Toward an Understanding of Synergies and Trade-Offs between Water, Energy, and Food SDG Targets

is the title of a publication by Dr. Marianela Fader, Colleen Cranmer, Richard Lawford and Jill Engel-Cox.

Achieving the SDG targets will require committed efforts by nations and organizations over the coming decade. To determine the best compatible actions within funding, infrastructure development, and implementation of three closely aligned goals, the greatest synergies where investigated as well as conflicting resource needs creating trade-offs possibly threatening SDG success. The SDGs each have several targets that need to be realized to reach the goal. A methodology was designed to analyse each target of SDG 2 (food), 6 (water), and 7 (energy). The targets were compared pairwise and total interaction was calculated to determine different levels of synergies and trade-offs for every pair. It was concluded that achieving the water targets will make it continuously easier to achieve other targets. While the results may require adaptation to a specific locality or country, they provide an improved understanding of the interactions between the targets. The value of the study lies in the quantitative methodology as it can be used as a replicable analysis for any level of work on SDG implementation.