At the launch, Ravi Narayanan, Vice Chair of the forum’s Governing Council, introduced the 12 founding members of KnowledgeHubs.

The reason why is a classic supply-demand quandary: The amount of fresh water remains constant at 3% of all water on Earth. But according to the United Nations Population Fund, global consumption will double every two decades. So in 13 years, the International Water Management Institute estimates, one-third of the world's population will face a severe water shortage.

In the midst of rising food prices and scarcity, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the Stockholm International Water Institute and the International Water Management Institute have expressed their grave concern about the wastage of food. For instance, these organizations, in a report titled “Saving water : from field to fork – curbing losses and wastage in the food chain”, say that in the US alone, about 30% of produced food, worth about 48.3 billion USD is wasted every year.

It is working in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute and the International Water Management Institute.

In 2006, Mugerwa, a student doing his Master's degree, conducted an experiment under the supervision of Dr. Mpairwe. He fenced off part of Lubega's degraded farm and planted pasture seeds (re-seeding).

The Australian Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Dr Colin Chartres, said it was very likely that current water shortages are the result of climate change.

He said they were "a window into the future" when water scarcity and resulting food insecurity will be the norm for many countries unless action was taken now to overcome them.

Far less money is spent now on maintaining the vast networks of water drainage and irrigation that crisscross the country than was expended under communism. The authorities spend about $12 a hectare on maintenance, down from $120 a hectare in Soviet times, according to the International Water Management Institute. Blocked drainage pipes push salt levels up, damaging the land and dragging crop yields ever lower.

Far less money is spent now on maintaining the vast networks of water drainage and irrigation that crisscross the country than was expended under Communism. Authorities spend about $12 per hectare on maintenance (a hectare is around two and a half acres), down from $120 per hectare in Soviet times, according to the International Water Management Institute. Blocked drainage pipes push salt levels up, damaging the land and dragging crop yields ever lower.

With river water fully used, Indian farmers have been trying to increase supplies by tapping underground reserves. In the last 15 years, they have bought a staggering 20 million Yamaha pumps to suck water from beneath their fields. Tushaar Shah, director of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater research station in Gujarat, estimates those farmers are pumping annually to the surface 100 cubic kilometers more water than the monsoon rains replace. Water tables are plunging, and in many places water supplies are giving out.

These improvements in water management as a concept violate current legal, institutional, and professional understanding, but time has come for change. Even the International Water Management Institute teaches the world the error that the improved water management is bad water management. The Institute should be professionally ostracized and then disbanded for such a serious error. The ongoing research in the Arkansas Valley is directed with the emphases from earlier experiences of improving irrigated agriculture.

On the 19th May 2008, Pascal Vine, Director General of Cemagref and Colin Chartres, Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Antony, France, with the intention of developing a medium term collaborative research program in water management.

Cemagraf and IWMI, who have been in partnership since 1992, hope to pursue this collaboration in a range of research topics covering selected areas of water management from irrigation systems to hydrographic basins.