Energy resilience and crisis management in fragile systems: A WEFE nexus-based framework for sudan

Sudan’s energy system is increasingly vulnerable to compounded shocks arising from armed conflict, institutional fragility, and climate variability. Disruptions in electricity and cooking fuel supply can cascade across water services, food systems, and ecosystem integrity. This paper presents a conceptual framework with policy implications that positions energy resilience as a cross-sectoral stabilizer within the Water–Energy–Food–Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus. Specifically, it examines how decentralized renewable energy systems can mitigate multi-sectoral failures triggered by active conflict, addressing a critical gap in understanding conflict-driven nexus dynamics. Drawing on energy resilience, WEFE nexus, and conflict-fragility literature, together with evidence from Sudan, the study makes three conceptual contributions. First, it introduces the Shock–Cascade–Buffer Model to explain how shocks propagate through centralized energy systems and generate disruptions across the WEFE nexus. Second, it develops the concept of Cross-Sector Buffering Capacity, highlighting how resilient energy systems can protect water supply, food production, and ecosystem services from cascading failures. Third, it translates these concepts into four operational resilience pillars: decentralization, diversification, redundancy, and integrated governance. The framework identifies microgrids, solar cooking devices, and solar-thermal drying systems as potential mechanisms to enhance system stability and mitigate environmental degradation from biomass depletion. By integrating energy resilience and WEFE nexus analysis in fragile-state contexts, the framework repositions energy systems as instruments of cross-sectoral stability rather than infrastructure for electricity provision. Using Sudan as an illustrative case, the study provides guidance for policymakers while offering a transferable foundation for resilience-oriented energy planning in fragile and conflict-affected settings.