Global Drivers

The CPWF is concerned with the conditions of global food and water systems, and the interaction of these with development. Analysis concludes that sufficient resources exist to support development through 2050, if (and only if) they are managed differently, specifically through greater long-term investment to improve productivity, greater sharing of benefits and risks, and an underlying positive collective political discourse.

Introduction to Global Drivers (CPWF GD-TWG workshop, September 2011)

View more presentations from CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food

Yet development in river basins is strongly influenced by a range of non-random factors at various (local, regional, and global) scales. These can present a bewildering array of effects that confound concerted action and the requisite management changes for sustainable development. The purpose of this TWG is to assemble information regarding the condition and influence of these drivers in basins currently and in the future, to remove some of the uncertainties facing the Basin Development Challenges.

The 2012 Workplan for GD-TWG can be divided into two project types:

Special reports, each of which will analyze a specific driver (with emphasis on issues that the CPWF basin coordination and project leaders identified as especially important but not well understood). For example, the economics issue will specifically address mining, biofuels, and foreign direct investment, in addition to other larger economic trends. The first two reports will focus on demographic and political drivers. The final three (economic, environmental, technological) will be published sometime in 2012 or 2013.
Future scenario analysis , in which the GD-TWG will develop a new foresight methodology to explore a range of possible future scenarios and gain insight into what 3 basins might look like in 2050. The analysis will involve: 1) a scoping exercise that compiles existing knowledge and data about drivers and projections affecting each basin, 2) a scenario-building workshop that will bring together experts and stakeholders with different points of view to draft basin-specific scenarios, and 3) revision and analysis of the scenarios to draw basin-specific and cross-basin conclusions for the CPWF.