trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

countries of operation, promoting more sustainable practices in regions where the water governance isin a state of disrepair. This ”leverage point in value chain governance” has previously been applied inrising labour and environmental standards in the ”South” (Humphrey and Schmitz 2001:3). It isacknowledged that enforcing uniform standards into consolidated global value chains risks neglectinglocal practices and livelihoods and re-materialising post-colonial geography (Friedberg 2007), but in asituation where transnational corporations have a major capacity to ameliorate a fundamental globalproblem such as water insecurity, their standardized involvement in the global governance of it shouldbe encouraged.Above all, interaction among the different actors in the agro-food value chains and networks is aprerequisite for a sustainable global water governance framework that demands for obligations from allits participants. Consumers have to be educated on water security to change into less water-intensivediets and to demand for sustainable products. Food processors and retailers have to make consumerdecisions easier by developing labelling of their products and demand water accountability from theirsupply chains. Traders have to respond to the pressure and reconsider the sustainability of their globaloperations. Farmers need to be encouraged to deploy most sustainable irrigation methods and choosethe best crops considering the overall sustainability of their livelihoods. Ultimately, more sustainableagricultural and trade policies and regulatory guidelines taking in account the water-food-energy-tradenexus are needed from the governmental organizations. Non-governmental organizations are needed asgeneral lobbyists and facilitators.This study does not claim to provide any blueprint for global governance of water security, but toillustrate the thus far poorly understood though highly important role of global agro-food value chainsand networks to it. If the multiple global challenges on the water-food-energy-trade nexus are to besolved, more transdisciplinary, solution-seeking research on the topic is direly needed.ReferencesAldaya, M., Hoekstra, A.Y. and Allan, J.A. (2010). Strategic importance of green water in internationalcrop trade. Ecological Economics, 69:887–894.Allan, J.A. (1993) Fortunately there are Substitutes for Water Otherwise our Hydro-political Futureswould be Impossible. In: Priorities for Water Resources Allocation and Management. London,United Kingdom: ODA: 13–26.Allan, J.A. (2001) The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy. London,United Kingdom: I B Tauris.Allan, J. A. (2003). Virtual water-the water, food, and trade nexus: useful concept or misleadingmetaphor? Water International 28(1):106–112.Allan, J. A. (2006) IWRM: The New Sanctioned Discourse? In: Mollinga, P.P., Dixit A. and AthukoralaK. (Ed.) Integrated Water Resources Management. Global Theory, Emerging Practice and LocalNeeds, 38-63. Sage Publications: New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London.Barlow, M. and Clarke, T. (2002) Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’sWater. New York: The New Press.Berry, J.M (2003) Validity and reliability issues in elite interviewing. Political Science and Politics, 35:679-682.Biswas, A. K. and Tortajada, C. (Ed.) (2009) Impacts of Megaconferences on the Water Sector . Berlin:Springer-Verlag.Brown, L.R. (2011) The New Geopolitics of Food. Foreign Policy, May/June 2011.Bryman, A. (2003) Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press: Oxford.168