Nourish and Flourish addresses the urgent challenge of sustainably feeding a projected 10 billion people by 2050. Although an additional 2 billion people have been fed in the last 20 years, current agricultural water management (AWM) practices must be transformed if future needs are to be met without environmental damage.
The report shows how this challenge can be met through three paradigm shifts: (1) embrace complexity to balance the requirements of people, prosperity, and the planet; (2) establish incentives to transition from hardware to services; and (3) end the guesswork by collecting and using data for transparent, evidence-based decisions. These shifts are complemented by a new water-food nexus framework that categorizes countries by their level of water stress (high/low) and food trade position (net importer/exporter), enabling tailored, context-specific solutions rather than one-size-fits-all approaches. Combined with examples of country experiences, the report illustrates pathways to AWM transformation at scale.