I am Cynthia Mwamba Safi, student in Master's degree at the Regional School of Water.​

"I had the opportunity to participate in the winter school on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEF) of the SADC (Southern African Development Community), which took place from August 14 to 18 at the Future Africa UP campus of the University of Pretoria/Universiteit van Pretoria. The objective of this school was to allow participants to understand the concept of the Nexus, in particular that of WEF, as a transformative approach for sustainable natural resource management and socio-economic development.

Les objectifs de cette formation étaient les suivants :

• Améliorer la capacité à conceptualiser les liens WEF Nexus et leur impact potentiel sur la gestion des ressources et les politiques régionales.
• Renforcer les compétences et les connaissances sur les outils et les méthodes de planification, de suivi et d'évaluation du WEF Nexus​
• Favoriser le réseautage et le mentorat, en améliorant la communication internationale entre les praticiens, les étudiants de troisième cycle, les chercheurs en début de carrière, les chercheurs confirmés et les experts, afin de construire et consolider un réseau du WEF en Afrique australe et dans le monde entier.

Activities carried out during this training week included:

• Learning to conceptualize the links between the WEF Nexuses and their potential impact on resource management and policy.
• A visit to the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), where researchers supported us and shared their knowledge and experience on their environmentally friendly research and innovative projects, aligned with the assessment framework of WEF Nexus. The integrated water management approach based on the circular economy of water reuse in their agricultural activities, their innovative solutions for wastewater treatment and their initiatives aimed at reducing water consumption for irrigation particularly interested me as a water resource manager.
• The launch of the community of practice WEF Nexus, aimed at improving communication and collaboration between interested people to build and consolidate a network WEF in SADC and beyond the community.
• The development of a concept note for a WEF Nexus project, which we needed to present to funders to obtain funding under the WEF Nexus project.

In my group, we had the privilege of working on the proposal for Zambia, which we presented to the donor. The highlight was the validation of our project by the donor present in the room.

I firmly believe that the approach WEF Nexus pour résoudre les problèmes a le potentiel de réorienter les systèmes fermés vers des solutions plus holistiques et intégrées en abordant de multiples processus combinés (eau, énergie, alimentation, environnement, climat, gouvernance et socio-économie), ainsi que les réalités environnementales, climatiques, de gouvernance et socio-économiques.

Participants in the winter school WEF were postgraduate students, early career researchers, practitioners and managers from different countries. It has been an absolute pleasure to interact and network with such a diverse team.

JI would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the training, WaterNet, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, WRC South Africa, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Global Water Partnership South Africa and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), for organizing an event training so well structured and insightful. I thank everything particulièrement WaterNet and the Regional School of Water at the University of Kinshasa for their support and support in the development of my skills and knowledge."