Real versus “Virtual” Economy: The Case of SADC and Virtual Water

Three of the four largest economies in the world (China, USA, India, Japan) will be Asian by 2050 (Mahbubani, 2008: 51-52). Kapur and Suri (2014: 309) view that “[t]he most severe challenge facing rising powers in Asia in particular is the growing severity of natural resource constraints, especially land and water, which are not easily amenable to technological solutions and which (unlike energy) cannot be augmented by trade.”. Countries of the South African Development Community (SADC) dispose of natural resources to a varying degree – water security is at stake, bearing in mind that some SADC members face water stress.

An innovative feature of our paper is, thus, the “16+1” focus represented by China and 16 SADC members rather than the by and large discussed “16+1” meeting platform of China for countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In the framework of the VEGA research project No. 1/0777/20 (2020-2022, University of Economics in Bratislava), mixed methods research will be conducted: application of quantitative methods in deductive-objective general research mapping water footprint in the SADC region will feed into inductive-subjective-contextual research with qualitative methods interpreting the virtual water status quo as well as perspective (resting on the land and water endowment).