UN DESA’s Economic Analysis and Policy Division is conducting research on the topic of “Sustainable Development in Times of Recurrent Crises”. This work seeks to analyse the impact of more frequent and interlinked crises on sustainable development and to put forward policy options that would help design more impactful interventions, identify new opportunities for faster progress, enhance resilience, and strengthen multilateral cooperation. The work has an intended audience of policymakers, economists, development professionals and other sustainable development stakeholders.

The Expert Group Meeting (21-22 March 2023) brought together high-level experts, academics and staff from international organizations to review the changing global risk landscape and assess its potential impacts on sustainable development; analyse policy responses; consider policy options for the future; and discuss ways forward for coordinated international action to strengthen progress towards sustainable development.

Summary of the meeting

Roundtable 1: The changing crisis landscape and its implications for sustainable development

• Thomas Homer-Dixon – Public policy and the polycrisis
• Richard Lukacs – Political and economic consequences
• Åsa Persson – Environmental impacts of crises
• Sakiko Fukuda-Parr – Crises of inequalities

Roundtable 2: National level policy responses – macroeconomic policies

• Marcel Fratzscher – Macroeconomic consequences of crises and transformations
• Giancarlo Corsetti – Macroeconomic stability after the COVID 19 pandemic and the war in the Ukraine
• Robert Powell – National macroeconomics policymaking: critical issues

Roundtable 3: National level policy responses – social protection mechanisms

• Janet Gornick – Reducing income inequality via taxes and transfers
• Stephen Kidd – Affordable, universal social security: building resilience to recurrent crises
• George Gray Molina – Assessment of the social protection systems during the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis

Roundtable 4: Strengthening resilience and the role of global public goods

• Todd Sandler – Global public goods
• Clemence Landers – Multilateral development banks: how to improve the provision of global public goods
• Alex Ezeh – The Role of global public goods in strengthening resilience: a global health perspective