There is an urgent need for coordinated WEFE policies in the Mediterranean to address water scarcity, food and energy insecurity, ecosystem health, and potential conflicts exacerbated by climate change. However, countries in the MENA region currently lack an integrated policy framework that connects water resources management, energy, food, and ecosystems. Given the profound impact of climate change on food and water security, implementing integrated, transformative, inclusive and WEFE-based policies in the MENA region is imperative in order to effectively manage water, energy, and food resources. Coordinated WEFE policies should take into account the intricate interconnections between biophysical and socio-economic systems. Transboundary considerations are also crucial, as policies in one country can affect WEFE security regionally and locally due to the inherent production and consumption linkages in global markets and trade. When designing WEFE nexus policies within the Mediterranean region, it is essential to account for their effects on other sectors, ecosystems, and countries through market interactions.

Governance for the WEFE nexus requires strengthened connections and better management through coordination, integration, coherence, and collaboration between actors and their respective strategies and actions, rather than through the creation of new institutions. In the Mediterranean Basin, especially in southern countries, there is insufficient cooperation between science and policy, with stakeholders often expressing different, and sometimes incompatible, goals, agendas, and priorities. Enhancing the science-policy interface in these countries presents an opportunity for integrated WEFE planning, management, and governance. It is imperative to avoid siloed approaches and instead focus on hybrid governance modes and policy instruments that are holistic and long-term. Citizens’ assemblies based on deliberative processes can help overcome some limitations of current democratic systems and practices in responding to the climate crisis. WEFE challenges and interlinkages in the Mediterranean region can be more efficiently addressed by referring to frameworks such as social-ecological resilience, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or the 2050 Vision on Biodiversity.

Most projects funded under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, such as ARIMNET and ERANETMED, have focused on technological and social innovations in the WEFE domains, and particularly water-ecosystem and energy-ecosystem links. Public-Private Partnerships have proven to be effective funding mechanisms for the WEFE nexus. Projects under Horizon 2020 and PRIMA programmes have significantly improved capacity-building and awareness among involved partners regarding WEFE components.