Bridging policy silos: governance challenges and opportunities in the WEFE nexus of non-EU PRIMA partner countries – a systematic literature review

The Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) Nexus has evolved from a resource efficiency paradigm within water, energy, and food (WEF) systems toward a broader governance framework that recognizes ecosystems as essential to resource security and sustainability. While this conceptual expansion has strengthened the Nexus’ analytical scope, a research gap remains regarding how governance mechanisms translate WEFE principles into actionable policy, particularly in non-European Union (EU) countries participating in the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA), where institutional fragmentation and policy silos persist. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach, this systematic literature review examines how the WEFE Nexus has been integrated into governance processes, focusing on policy coherence, coordination, and complementarity. Boolean string searches combining terms on the Nexus, governance, and the Mediterranean region were applied across Scopus and Google Scholar. Publications were selected from open-access and hybrid-access databases, supplemented by inter-library loans for sources unavailable through the host university. Eighty records published between 2011 and 2025 were retained for detailed analysis. The review finds increasing policy and research alignment with WEFE principles across the Mediterranean area. Several countries, notably Morocco, Israel, Jordan, and Tunisia, are advancing integrated and participatory approaches that enhance policy coherence, promote circular economy models, and strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration. These emerging governance innovations demonstrate that the WEFE Nexus is transitioning from ‘nexus thinking’ to ‘nexus doing’ that supports sustainable resource management, regional resilience, and cross-sectoral policy integration.