UN Policy Brief Highlights Compounding Crises Impacting Global Development Gains
A new policy brief, titled 'From Shock to Resilience: Protecting Development Gains Amid Compounding Crises,' released by the UN Sustainable Development Goals Fund and its partners, details how multiple external shocks are reinforcing each other and undermining countries' ability to protect development progress. The brief, drawing on data from UN Country Teams, examines the interacting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war's effects on energy and food prices, and socio-economic spillovers from the Middle East conflict. These shocks are occurring alongside existing vulnerabilities and climate-related disruptions, food insecurity, and displacement. Over the past six years, developing countries have faced a sequence of these overlapping crises, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, followed by significant energy, food, and fertilizer price increases linked to the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, and more recently, pressures from the Middle East conflict since February of the current year.
