Food Security and Climate Migration. Multilateral Approaches to Complex Crises

Numerous regions of the world face a blend of security, governance, developmental, and environmental challenges compounded by rising inequality and fragility. These “nexus” challenges intersect in complex ways, and interlock with the cascading effects of crises erupting in distant geographies, as illustrated by the global shock waves emanating from the Ukraine war or the Covid-19 outbreak. Despite considerable progress made in adapting multilateral approaches to the multidimensional and multi-causal nature of nexus challenges, the combination of interconnected and transnational risk factors in complex crisis scenarios adds urgency to revisiting deeply ingrained policy siloes of diplomacy, development, and defence, and to mobilising integrated responses effectively leveraging multi-sectoral capacities. By tracing the evolution of multilateral policy thinking and development vis-à-vis nexus challenges over the past decades, this report, developed as part of the Nexus²⁵ project, seeks to emphasise a forward-looking and multidisciplinary debate to rethink international cooperation in the face of complex crisis scenarios.

Photo credit: Riccardo Venturi