This year, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will convene to examine the critical issue of interconnected risks and their compounding effects on vulnerable populations worldwide. The agenda centers on the complex interaction of factors that drive instability among society’s most at-risk groups. In particular, it will explore how systemic poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social inequality do not exist in isolation. They interact and reinforce one another, creating vicious cycles of vulnerability and instability.

When these challenges overlap, their combined impact is even more severe, as seen in countries like South Sudan, Solomon Islands, and Niger. There, for example, ongoing conflict, environmental crises, and widespread poverty continually intensify each other, making recovery and sustainable development extremely difficult. By examining all of these factors closely, the committee will aim to create lasting solutions that help tackle all of these interlinked issues, improve the conditions of the people which live in these affected nations.