Engaging with the UN Secretary General's call for a more effective, networked and inclusive approach to multilateralism (Our Common Agenda, 2021), this paper discusses the main challenges to the implementation of the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus concept. Institutionalised by the UN in 2016, such cross-policy effort at global governance has been neglected by the IR and IPE literatures. To start filling this gap, the paper identifies strengths and weaknesses of multilateral inter-agency cooperation on the Nexus approach. Based on previous research on inter-organisational performance and regime complexity, it investigates select evidence from three organisations (UN, EU, World Bank), in pre- and post-COVID-19 contexts. Identifying tangible elements of experimentalist governance in the HDP global endeavour, the paper concludes with a synthetic overview of the comparative advantages that each organisation offers to implement the Nexus.
Photo by Darrel Und