From Shock to Resilience: Protecting Development Gains Amid Compounding Crises (September 2026)

Over the past six years, developing countries have been impacted by multiple external shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, massive energy, food and fertiliser price hikes in 2022 due to the Russia-Ukraine war and, since February of this year, the global socio-economic spillovers from the conflict in the Middle East.

Many countries are navigating this latest shock with restricted policy space, constrained by weak public finances, inadequate access to international support and an intensifying debt-development trade-off. 

This policy brief, authored by the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Development Coordination Office, outlines the main global trends and transmission channels of this external shock. It also uses reporting and survey data from across UN Country Teams to examine how the shock compounds existing crises, including El Niño and other climate-related impacts, food insecurity and hunger hotspots, conflict and displacement. The policy brief highlights how these overlapping pressures affect countries’ exposure and response capacity, and sets out their policy priorities and how the UN system is supporting countries in navigating a context of compounding crises.