World Bank Report Outlines Pathways To Greener, More Inclusive Growth

• In low-income settings, the report recommends prioritizing poverty reduction by delivering economic growth and reducing multidimensional poverty.
• It calls for prioritizing income growth in MICs to reduce vulnerability, and synergies to reduce the carbon intensity of growth.
• The report argues that UMICs and HICs, which account for four-fifths of global GHG emissions, need to transition to low-carbon economies quickly while managing transition costs.

20 November 2024

The World Bank published the first post-COVID-19-pandemic assessment of global progress towards eradicating poverty and improving shared prosperity on a livable planet. The report explores pathways out of today’s “polycrisis” for low-income countries (LICs), middle-income countries (MICs), and upper-middle-income (UMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). It recommends prioritizing data for timelier monitoring.

Titled, ‘Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways out of the Polycrisis,’ the report finds that today, almost 700 million people – or 8.5% of the global population – live in extreme poverty (on less than USD 2.15 per day). In LICs, poverty rates are higher than before the pandemic.

By a standard more relevant for UMICs, around 3.5 billion people (44% of the global population) are poor, living on less than USD 6.85 per day, according to the report. This number has barely changed since the 1990s due to population growth.

In 2024, 67% of those affected by extreme poverty lived in Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 16% of the world’s population.

The report finds that based on current trends, 622 million people, or 7.3% of the global population, will live in extreme poverty in 2030. About 69 million people are projected to escape extreme poverty between 2024 and 2030. In comparison, approximately 150 million got out of poverty between 2013 and 2019. The report further estimates that nearly 40% of the world’s population (3.4 billion people) will live on less than USD 6.85 per day.

The Global Prosperity Gap – an indicator of shared prosperity used by the World Bank – reveals that progress in reducing the prosperity gap has stalled since the pandemic, with around one-fifth of the world’s population living in countries with high inequality.

The report identifies climate change as a fundamental risk to poverty and inequality reduction. It anticipates people’s risks to climate hazards to increase unless resilience is improved and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reduced.

The report underscores that to eradicate poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet, trade-offs need to be understood, synergistic policies scaled, and short-term transition costs to specific groups and communities managed.

In low-income settings, the report recommends prioritizing poverty reduction by delivering economic growth and reducing multidimensional poverty. It calls for prioritizing income growth in MICs to reduce vulnerability, and synergies to reduce the carbon intensity of growth. The report argues that UMICs and HICs, which account for four-fifths of global GHG emissions, need to transition to low-carbon economies quickly while managing transition costs.

The report calls for fostering international cooperation and closing financing gaps for sustainable development to enable the transition towards more sustainable, low-carbon, and resilient economies.

The report was launched on 15 October, ahead of the 2024 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG). [Publication: Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways out of the Polycrisis] [Main Messages] [Publication Landing Page] [World Bank Press Release]

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