A vision for equitable food, land and water systems by 2050

The world faces a defining moment. By 2050, global demand for food is expected to rise, climate shocks are expected to intensify, and youth populations in many regions are expected to grow rapidly. Food, land and water systems (FLWS) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are being pushed to their limits by the polycrisis — multiple interconnected global challenges whose combined impacts exceed the sum of their individual effects — deepening inequalities and threatening food security, socioeconomic stability and ecological resilience.3 The compounding challenges facing FLWS include climate change, strains on natural resources and profound demographic shifts, including a growing population marked by shifts toward both younger and older population structures, rapid urbanization and accelerating, increasingly diverse, and often gendered patterns of internal and international migration. Sudden-onset triggers (like natural disasters, conflicts or pandemics) interact with slow-onset stressors (like demographic shifts, rising temperatures and socioeconomic inequalities) to push established global systems into a state of disequilibrium and breakdown. A unique challenge of the polycrisis lies in the deep uncertainty it creates — FLWS actors at all scales are struggling to make decisions about a rapidly changing future.