Population movements taking place in past decades, including those reaching the European Union, defy straightforward and simplistic conceptions of drivers, trajectories and forms of migration. Approaching migration journeys as non-linear processes, this book looks into the conditions and legal-policy frameworks at broad spaces of mobility interlinking several origin, transit, destination and host contexts in South/Central/Western Asia, Eastern/Central/Western Africa, Central and South America, and Europe to provide a more nuanced understanding of mixed migration. It also looks at specific migratory trends towards the European Union before and after the so-called ‘migration crisis’ (2009–2020), while paying particular attention to gender- and sexuality-specific dynamics and patterns.

Numerous regions of the world face a blend of security, governance, developmental, and environmental challenges compounded by rising inequality and fragility. These “nexus” challenges intersect in complex ways, and interlock with the cascading effects of crises erupting in distant geographies, as illustrated by the global shock waves emanating from the Ukraine war or the Covid-19 outbreak. Despite considerable progress made in adapting multilateral approaches to the multidimensional and multi-causal nature of nexus challenges, the combination of interconnected and transnational risk factors in complex crisis scenarios adds urgency to revisiting deeply ingrained policy siloes of diplomacy, development, and defence, and to mobilising integrated responses effectively leveraging multi-sectoral capacities. By tracing the evolution of multilateral policy thinking and development vis-à-vis nexus challenges over the past decades, this report, developed as part of the Nexus25 project, seeks to emphasise a forward-looking and multidisciplinary debate to rethink international cooperation in the face of complex crisis scenarios.

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