Coproducing water-energy-food Nexus actionable knowledge: Lessons from a multi-actor collaborative learning school in Uganda, East Africa

Abstract

The water-energy-food (WEF) Nexus is an integrative framework for addressing the multi-scalar interdependencies that challenge sustainability solutions across the water, energy, and food systems. However, challenges linked to scale and data availability often make WEF analyses more theoretical, limiting their ability to offer practical, implementable solutions in policy and decision contexts. This paper introduces Collaborative Learning Schools (CLS) as a transdisciplinary process that fosters stakeholder engagement, cross-cultural knowledge exchange, and participatory learning for actionable policy and management solutions from WEF Nexus research, which we tested in Buikwe district in the central region of Uganda, East Africa. Our CLS brings together scientists (professors and students), practitioners, policy makers and implementers, and farmers around a holistic, cross-scale analysis of WEF Nexus issues for innovative and appropriate solutions. The CLS also integrates cross-scale linkages (from community to local government, to national policy context), blended systems and design thinking approaches, and post-evaluations. Our analysis and findings start with an account of the CLS implementation process, while also assessing the utility of integrating the WEF Nexus with systems and design thinking tools. We also present the co-created outputs and evaluative reflections from the non-academic stakeholders. We discuss the CLS value, emphasizing its potential to support participatory co-creations of context-driven multi-scalar WEF-Nexus pathways for problem-solving-oriented knowledge co-production. Through this case study, we contribute promising practices for effective stakeholder engagement and transdisciplinary co-production of actionable knowledge, drawing from tangential but complementary systems thinking and design thinking perspectives. We also provide a real-world illustration of aspirations for true transdisciplinary approaches that include communities and stakeholders in research processes.