Water-Energy-Food Security and Mining in Suriname: A project overview

Water, energy and food (WEF) security constitutes critical components of human well-being and includes aspects of supply, demand and access to all three.

It is crucial to ensure that people have sustained access to good quality and affordable energy, water and food. Large-scale development efforts such as mining, agriculture or industrial development affect WEF security both positively and negatively. These developments are often driven by a need for more reliable food, energy or water or their components and can provide significant opportunities to improve WEF. On the other hand, focusing on enhancing one of these aspects may mean that such development causes unintended long-term consequences for other critical components of regional well-being. It is for this reason that IISD has been focusing on integrating WEF security into development decisions.

IISD adapted a WEF security for the agricultural context to look at these interlinked securities in the context of mining and applied this framework and a resulting tool in the context of mining in Suriname. This report provides an overview of this initiative, including the following four tasks:

• Task 1 – WEF and mining review, including a comprehensive literature review
• Task 2 – WEFsat-Mining tool development and status assessment
• Task 3 – Hydrologic Assessment Guidance for monitoring and reporting on water related to mining.
• Task 4 – Capacity building and training including two regional workshops on WEF security

Finally, the report provides some guidance for investment and targeting for improved WEF security in the context of mining in Suriname. These include improved monitoring and indicator systems including hydrologic monitoring systems, improving procurement policies on mine sites, and investment in renewable energy systems and transportation sub-nationally and nationally.