UNDP and ASRA Partner to Strengthen Global Crisis Preparedness

UNDP operates in 170 countries and territories, including 60 classified as fragile by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA) have launched a strategic partnership to help countries better prepare for complex and interconnected global crises. The collaboration will provide UNDP country offices with practical tools and training to improve how they identify risks, make decisions, and respond to emergencies before they escalate.

UNDP operates in 170 countries and territories, including 60 classified as fragile by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The new initiative is expected to strengthen the organisation's ability to support governments facing overlapping challenges such as climate change, conflict, economic instability, and natural disasters.

New Tools to Understand Interconnected Crises

Under the partnership, ASRA will work closely with UNDP headquarters and country offices to develop workshops focused on systemic risk assessment and response. A key part of the programme is the use of STEER (Systemic Tool to Explore and Evaluate Risks), an open-access framework that helps teams understand how different risks influence one another, evaluate trade-offs, and develop more effective solutions.

The experience gained through these workshops will contribute to the creation of a new Systemic Risk Course within the UNDP Crisis Academy. Scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of 2026, the course will be available to professionals from UN agencies, governments, and non-governmental organisations, providing practical guidance on applying systemic risk thinking in humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding work.

The collaboration will also strengthen UNDP's existing planning processes by adding deeper systemic risk analysis alongside current methods such as context assessments, blind spot analysis, and stress testing.

Preparing Countries for More Complex Challenges

UNDP says traditional approaches that examine individual hazards separately are becoming less effective as climate shocks, armed conflicts, natural disasters, and economic disruptions increasingly overlap and reinforce one another.

Minako Manome, Senior Advisor for Research, Analytics, Learning and Innovation at UNDP's Crisis Bureau, said managing today's interconnected risks requires a different way of thinking that looks beyond individual events to understand how crises spread across systems. She said the partnership with ASRA will give country offices stronger analytical tools to anticipate emerging threats and take action before multiple risks develop into larger crises.

Sarah Hendel-Blackford, Director of Systemic Risk Policy and Response at ASRA, said systemic risk approaches encourage organisations to work across traditional boundaries, involve a wider range of voices in planning, and consider both immediate and long-term impacts. She added that learning from UNDP country offices will help refine these approaches in the challenging environments where they are most needed.

The partnership combines ASRA's expertise in systemic risk with UNDP's global presence, marking the first use of the STEER framework across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding programmes.