Combating poverty in times of complex crises.. Why are traditional solutions no longer sufficient?

Aisha was a successful farmer living in Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, before her life changed within a few years under the weight of successive crises. In 2013, her husband and three of her children were killed, she was injured, and she and the rest of her family were forced to flee to an internally displaced persons settlement. After she started a small business selling charcoal, the liquidity crisis associated with the policy of reducing cash transactions pushed her towards selling on credit. This then coincided with weak rains and a decline in her children’s ability to support her.

Aisha’s story is an example of what researcher Vidya Diwakar calls “the complex crisis” or ( Polycrisis ) Conflict, economic shocks and climate-related disasters intersect, making the fight against poverty more complex than dealing with one crisis at a time.

When crises accumulate

Diwakar, a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies and deputy director of the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network, draws on evidence from 15 high-poverty countries in Africa and Asia to understand how overlapping crises push some families into deeper deprivation, while others manage to emerge from poverty despite difficult circumstances.

The problem is that the impact of crises does not stop when adding the losses of each crisis separately. Drought, for example, may prompt a small farmer to sell part of his livestock, but he may rebuild his business when it improvesRain. However, if drought is followed by high inflation, economic turmoil, or recurring droughts, the temporary loss may turn into debt, food insecurity, and continuous erosion of income and assets. Here, the fight against poverty is linked to the family’s ability to overcome crises without temporary difficulties turning into long-term poverty.

When the effects of crises multiply

The seriousness of overlapping crises is clearly evident in sub-Saharan African countries, where high levels of poverty coincide with weak institutions and limited public resources, which makes poor families more vulnerable to sliding into deeper levels of deprivation, and pushes other families to enter the cycle of poverty for the first time and remain there for longer periods.

The problem becomes more complex when some government responses come without adequate social protection.Vidya Diwakar points out that the removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria, for example, was accompanied by limited aid, which increased pressure on vulnerable families.

Dealing with each crisis separately may create new damage. Evacuating residents to shelters during floods may protect them from the water, but it may increase the risk of disease transmission if those centers are not well equipped.

This intersects with the first goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Goal 1.5, which calls for strengthening the ability of the poor and vulnerable groups to withstand economic, social and environmental shocks. From this perspective, combating poverty means building protection systems that prevent every new crisis from erasing the progress that families have achieved, especially with the decline in international aid and the dependence of some countries on it to finance services and support programs.

ClimateDoubles fragility

Climate shocks play a key role in this cycle, especially when droughts or floods recur before households can recover.

This is why the researcher places early warning systems and disaster preparedness, especially in rural and remote areas, among the basic tools in the fight against poverty. Early warning or rapid social protection may prevent a family from selling its livestock or productive assets, and preserve its ability to restore its income after the crisis ends.

This intersects with the thirteenth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), on climate action, specifically target 13.1, which calls for strengthening resilience and adaptation to climate-related risks and natural disasters.

Pathways out of poverty

Despite the bleak picture, the study reveals that combating poverty remains possible even in environments with multiple crises, but success often does not depend on a single solution or single intervention. Families that were able to improve their conditions relied on a greater degree of adaptation, diversifying sources of income, and reducing their dependence on a single activity that could collapse at the first shock.

Among the most prominent paths monitored by the study:

• Relying on more sustainable agricultural practices helps families adapt to drought and climate fluctuations and maintain production as much as possible.
• Diversifying sources of income by combining agriculture with other activities outside the agricultural sector, thus reducing the impact of losing one source of income.
• AdaptationContinuing with changing circumstances by adjusting economic and social activities with the emergence of new crises.
• Benefit from social protection and cash transfers to avoid selling assets or getting into debt that is difficult to get out of during periods of crisis.
• Access to employment opportunities, finance, and services, giving families greater ability to rebuild their livelihoods after shocks.

The researcher describes one of the most important of these paths as the concept of growth based on empowering families, meaning that a large part of the fight against poverty begins with strategies adopted by families themselves to build more stable income, instead of relying solely on economic policies that assume that the fruits of growth will gradually reach families from governments.

But the ability of families to move in this way remains linked to the presence of a supportive environment; Diversifying income or developing a new activity becomes more difficult without financing, infrastructure, social protection, or basic services that help the family overcome the first shock instead of consuming all its resources trying to survive.

Responding to interconnected crises

The study calls on governments and donors to abandon separate dealings with crises, and build policies that look at conflict, climate, the economy, and poverty as interconnected issues.

This includes expanding social protection systems, improving disaster preparedness, and supporting peacebuilding efforts to address the roots of conflict, as well as maintaining more stable aid flows to the poorest countries. It is also possible to restructure debtsTo ease financial pressures and give governments more space to invest in programs targeting the poor.

Non-governmental organizations and civil society have a complementary role, by strengthening communities’ resilience, supporting livelihoods, and conveying the voices of marginalized groups to decision-making circles.

The Earth Guards Foundation indicates that combating poverty in a world where crises are intertwined requires integrated policies to confront them; Protection from drought may fail if income is absent, economic aid may lose its impact if conflict continues, and development programs may collapse if families cannot withstand the next shock. The question is how to prevent each new crisis instead of returning them to it.