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Some 53% of children in low- and middle-income countries experience “learning poverty” – meaning they are unable to read and understand simple text by age 10.  To spur progress, the World Bank set a new target to cut “learning poverty” in half by 2030. Achieving this goal would require a “near tripling” of the current rate of progress and would still leave a learning poverty rate of 27%. But under a “business as usual scenario,” learning poverty would only fall to 43% by 2030, according to a new report, Ending Learning Poverty: What will it take? Read More. 

The global forecast for oil production in 2019 has been repeatedly revised downward over the last year and a half amid weakening demand for oil. Growth in demand  is now around 1%, or 1 million barrels per day – the weakest growth rate since 2012, according to the October 2019 Commodity Markets Outlook. Oil prices are projected to average $60/bbl in 2019 and are forecast to weaken to $58/bbl in 2020, $7/bbl lower than the previous forecast. The downward revision reflects the weaker outlook for global growth and therefore for oil demand. Oil consumption growth is expected to increase slightly next year at a level usually associated with global downturns. If economic growth deteriorates further, oil demand could be substantially weaker, says the report.

The cost of starting a business in low- and middle-income countries has fallen from 141.75% of per capita income in 1990, to 25.25% today, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business report, now in its 17^th year. Since the report’s inception, 178 economies have implemented 722 reforms in the area of starting a business, reducing or eliminating barriers to entry. Despite such improvements, considerable gaps still exist between developed and developing economies on most Doing Business indicators. Read more. 

According to the State of Global Air 2019 report, air pollution was the 5th highest mortality risk factor in 2017 globally. One of the components of outdoor (ambient) air pollution is PM2.5, particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in aerodynamic diameter (for context, one strand of human hair has an average diameter of 70 micrometers). These particles are capable of penetrating deep into the respiratory tract and causing severe health damage. Read More. 

In East Asia and Pacific, there have been drastic changes in the distribution of the population across different poverty lines between 1990 and 2015. East Asia and Pacific has been more successful than Sub-Saharan Africa in the fight against extreme poverty.

The decline in extreme poverty in the region (from around three-fifths to two-fifths of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa) translated primarily into an expansion of the population living below $5.50, with the middle-class accounting for a negligible share of the regional population. Put differently, 85% of Africans are still poor if judged by the standards of upper-middle income countries. Read More.