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Overview

The world has entered a new era of rapid global change driven by major shifts in demographics, wealth, technology, and climate.

But economic growth has been uneven, has come at the expense of the environment, and already has slowed due to climate damages. Global challenges — including fiscal strains on governments exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts, environmental degradation resource depletion, and record levels of displacement — are threatening recent gains. These challenges are compounded by intensifying systemic risks, including trade tensions, rising debt levels, reduced effectiveness of monetary policy as a crisis instrument, and increasing inequality — among and within countries.

To accelerate sustainable economic growth and inclusion, developing countries must tackle a variety of related underlying challenges. These include low levels of productivity and international competitiveness, inefficient public spending, inadequate domestic resource mobilization, price distortions from the fiscal system that discourage sustainability, lack of economic resilience, rising debt levels, an uncertain trade environment, and the rising danger of climate change.

Last Updated: Apr 26, 2022

people live in cities in emerging economies today, on pace to be 4 billion by 2030

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Expert Answers with Ayan Kose
pagetitle_video 01/11/22

Expert Answers: Are developing economies headed for a ‘hard landing’?

As the world enters a third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank Group's Global Economic Prospects forecasts a pronounced slowdown in economic activity. So what's driving this? What else can we expect? And how bad could it be? For answers to this and more, we are joined by the World Bank Prospects Group's Director, Ayhan Kose.
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