An analysis by the World Bank has revealed that next 25 years are going to be vital in determining if the poorest 26 countries would experience progress and would be classified as middle income countries.
“Home to more than 40 percent of people struggling on less than $2.15 a day, these countries are the central focus of global efforts to end extreme poverty. Yet their progress has stalled amid heightened conflict, frequent economic crises, and persistently feeble growth,” the analysis mentioned.
The analysis will be featured in World Bank’s upcoming Global Economic Prospects report which be published January 14, 2025.
While stating that global progress has so far bypassed these 26 countries, the analysis underlined that at the dawn of the 21st century, there were as many as 63 countries that were categorised as ‘low income’.
“Since then, 39 — including India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh — have entered the ranks of middle-income countries, meaning their annual per capita incomes were above by 2023,” it added.
The analysis further mentioned that the remaining countries, which were joined by South Sudan and the Syrian Arab Republic in the 2010s, have simply stagnated and on average and their inflation-adjusted GDP per capita has grown by less than 0.1 per cent annually over the past 15 years.
“Barring a sustained improvement in growth rates, only six of today’s low-income countries are likely to achieve middle-income status by 2050,” the analysis noted.
Opportunities galore
The analysis highlighted that these poor countries are blessed with natural resources.
“With more than 60 per cent and 50 per cent of the world’s known reserves of cobalt and graphite respectively, today’s low-income countries boast some of the largest known deposits of metals and minerals needed to generate and store renewable energy,” it stated.
“Their potential for solar-energy production is among the highest in the world. In addition, working-age populations—a potent force for economic growth—are rapidly expanding in these countries even as they shrink almost everywhere else,” the analysis added.
In its notes on the way forward, the analysis suggested that in order to climb the income ladder over the next 25 years, low-income countries can take inspiration from other poor countries that managed to leap to middle-income status in earlier decades.
“Girded by political stability and growth-supporting policies, about half of those countries achieved sustained growth accelerations—long periods of robust economic expansion—that propelled them out of low-income status. These growth spells tended to follow reforms that channeled public and private resources into investment and improved the business environment,” it mentioned.