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Decolonising Polycrisis: Southern Perspectives on Interlocking Crises

In this article, the authors reframe the concept of polycrisis through a decolonial lens, emphasizing the need to center global South experiences in understanding interlocking crises. Drawing on examples such as Pakistan’s climate-induced debt spiral and Puerto Rico’s post-disaster vulnerabilities, the authors argue that colonial legacies and global financial architectures continue to shape crisis dynamics. […]

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Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Intertwined Crises, Multiple Vulnerabilities

This report examines the complex and compounding challenges facing economies in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). It highlights how overlapping crises—such as armed conflict, institutional fragility, climate-related disasters, commodity price volatility, and global economic shocks—interact to deepen poverty, food insecurity, and deficits in human development across FCS economies. The report calls for targeted, sequenced policy

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Polycrisis! Implications for Public Policy in the Global South

This book explores contemporary public policy and governance in the Global South, offering comparative analyses and detailed case studies from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. It examines how governments are navigating 21st-century challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, democratic backsliding, deteriorating public services, and geopolitical shifts linked to the rise

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International Finance and the Global Polycrisis

This article explores the pivotal role of international finance in shaping political responses to four major global crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the climate emergency, and the intensifying geoeconomic rivalry between China and the United States. It highlights how financial mobilization has varied across these crises, serving distinct strategic purposes and

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Impact of Global Risks on Economic Downturn in Countries Worldwide: Analysis of the Causes of the Situation and Opportunities for Growth Recovery

The authors examine the impact of global risks on economic growth dynamics across more than 200 countries from 1961 to 2023, revealing a consistent decline in growth rates linked to intertwined geopolitical, economic, social, environmental, and technological risks. Through structural analysis and analytical tools, they identify economic and environmental risks as key contributors to the

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How Can Aid for Trade Support the Resilience of the Least Developed Countries in the Face of Polycrisis?

This article examines the potential of Aid for Trade (AfT) as a tool for building resilience in developing countries and least developed countries amid the growing complexity of global polycrisis. Drawing on evidence from a range of AfT-supported initiatives, it highlights AfT’s capacity to enhance resilience at both macro and micro levels. However, the impact

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Dynamics of the Polycrisis: Temporal Trends, Spatial Distribution, and Co-occurrences of National Shocks (1970–2019)

The authors investigate the evolving nature of global crises by analyzing the temporal trends, geographic distribution, and co-occurrences of shocks across 175 countries from 1970 to 2019. Their findings reveal that shocks have become increasingly co-occurring until 2000, particularly involving conflict, climate, and technological disruptions, followed by regionally varied patterns of stabilization or decline. By

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Turning Polycrisis into Polytunity

In this UNDP expert commentary, Yuen Yuen Ang argues that the convergence of global disruptions should be viewed not only as a period of crisis but also as an opportunity for systemic transformation. She introduces the concept of “polytunity” and proposes an Adaptive, Inclusive, and Moral (AIM) political economy as an alternative framework for addressing

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Systemic Management Practices—Enabling Local Governments to Adapt in Response to Complexity

The authors explore the impact of accelerating change and increasingly complex global and local challenges on the city as a complex socio-ecological service ecosystem (SES) and its capacity to ensure sustainability or ecosystem health. Drawing on systems science and the service ecosystems perspective, they present a framework for systemic management that prioritizes holistic, integrative, adaptive,

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Polycrisis in Agrifood Systems: Climate-Conflict Interactions and Labor Dynamics for Women and Youth in 21 African Countries

This paper examines how armed conflict and climate change jointly affect individual labour intensity in 21 African countries. Using labour force surveys alongside climate and conflict event data, the study finds that extreme climate events have more severe negative impacts in regions already affected by conflict. These compounded effects, framed as a climate-conflict polycrisis, disproportionately

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