Scarcity, security and institutional reform

On 25th August Alex Evans presented a paper on scarcity issues - water, food, energy, land and climate security, to staff from the UN Department of Political Affairs as part of a three day session on security threats organised by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. 

Alex's paper highlights the interconnected nature of scarcity issues and the need for the multilateral system to mitigate scarcity trends collectively.

It goes on to highlight seven key agendas requiring focus:

1) Improved surveillance and early warning

2) Mitigation of unsustainable population growth

3) Increased focus on agriculture - especially smallholder agriculture

4) Social protection systems and safety nets

5) Increased natural resource governance

6) Conflict prevention

7) Upgrade emergency response capacity 

For more details on each of these issues you can read Alex's excellent paper here.

Alex Evans is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University. This article originally appeared on Global Dashboard.