ABSTRACT
Contexts of polycrisis not only affect current poverty dynamics, but in driving vulnerable households to sequentially drawdown on and deplete their assets and networks to survive crises, they also precipitate sustained impoverishment and the intergenerational persistence of poverty. This applied chapter synthesises existing mixed methods analyses across the 15 focus countries to understand short-term coping responses to polycrisis. It identifies limited or short-lived social assistance during crises and thinning social networks that drive cycles of indebtedness. As crises converge, moreover, households are forced to erosive forms of coping, by going hungry, selling productive assets, withdrawing children permanently from school and engaging in transactional sex or child trafficking. It then considers the other end of the spectrum: individuals and households who have escaped poverty during polycrisis. It examines the combinations, pathways and processes that have enabled these escapes from poverty, for example through climate-smart agriculture, off-farm diversification and continuous economic and social adaptation with gender- and age-based differences. These strategies are less commonly accompanied by supportive systems and services, but where they do appear, for example through disaster risk management or social assistance, these form critical means of safeguarding wellbeing during polycrisis.
