The Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024 is the latest edition of the series formerly known as Poverty and Shared Prosperity. The report emphasizes that reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity must be achieved in ways that do not come at unacceptably high costs to the environment. The current “polycrisis”—where the multiple crises of slow economic growth, increased fragility, climate risks, and heightened uncertainty have come together at the same time—makes national development strategies and international cooperation difficult. Offering the first post-Coronavirus (COVID)-19 pandemic assessment of global progress on this interlinked agenda, the report finds that global poverty reduction has resumed but at a pace slower than before the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty with less than US$2.15 per person per day. Progress has essentially plateaued amid lower economic growth and the impacts of COVID-19 and other crises. Today, extreme poverty is concentrated mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile settings. At a higher standard more typical of upper-middle-income countries—US$6.85 per person per day—almost one-half of the world is living in poverty. The report also provides evidence that the number of countries that have high levels of income inequality has declined considerably during the past two decades, but the pace of improvements in shared prosperity has slowed, and that inequality remains high in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, people’s incomes today would need to increase fivefold on average to reach a minimum prosperity threshold of US$25 per person per day. Where there has been progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity, there is evidence of an increasing ability of countries to manage natural hazards, but climate risks are significantly higher in the poorest settings. Nearly one in five people globally is at risk of experiencing welfare losses due to an extreme weather event from which they will struggle to recover. The interconnected issues of climate change and poverty call for a united and inclusive effort from the global community. Development cooperation stakeholders—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to communities and citizens acting locally in every corner of the globe—hold pivotal roles in promoting fair and sustainable transitions. By emphasizing strategies that yield multiple benefits and diligently monitoring and addressing trade-offs, we can strive toward a future that is prosperous, equitable, and resilient.
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- Link to data and reproducibility package
- Citation
- “ World Bank . 2024 . Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways Out of the Polycrisis . © Washington, DC: World Bank . http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42211 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO . ”
- Collection(s)
- Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report
- DOI
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-2123-3
- ISBN
- 978-1-4648-2123-3
- Pages
- 66
- Published in
- United States of America
- Rights
- CC BY 3.0 IGO
- Rights Holder
- World Bank
- Rights URI
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo
- URI
- https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42211
- date disclosure
- 2024-10-15
- region geographical
- World
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Table of Contents
- Front Cover 1
- Contents 5
- Foreword 7
- Acknowledgments 11
- About the Team 13
- Overview 17
- Progress: Global poverty reduction and improvements in shared prosperity have stalled 17
- Pathways: Eradicating poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a livable planet requires managing trade-offs 35
- Priorities: Doing what matters, where it matters most 46
- Notes 56
- References 57
- Boxes 24
- Box O.1 How is the Prosperity Gap calculated? 24
- Box O.2 Concepts of welfare and differences in measured inequality 29
- Box O.3 How is the number of people at risk from extreme weather hazards calculated? 33
- Figures 19
- Figure O.1 Progress has stagnated for the poor 19
- Figure O.2 Projections of poverty until 2050 under different scenarios 20
- Figure O.3 Poverty is still above prepandemic levels in the poorest countries 21
- Figure BO.1.1 The Prosperity Gap captures how far societies are from $25 per person per day 24
- Figure O.4 Stalled progress in Global Prosperity Gap reduction 25
- Figure O.5 Limited gains in the Global Prosperity Gap due to a slowdown of global growth and an increase of global inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic 27
- Figure O.6 Poorer and conflict-affected economies tend to be more unequal 30
- Figure O.7 Income levels in the world have grown between 1990 and 2024, but many people remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty 32
- Figure BO.3.1 Measuring the vulnerability of people at high risk from climate-related hazards 34
- Figure O.8 A large share of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa does not have access to protection or a financial account 38
- Figure O.9 Projections of emissions and temperatures to 2050 40
- Figure O.10 Additional emissions associated with poverty alleviation increase with the level of ambition 41
- Figure O.11 Lower emissions from poverty alleviation projected with energy efficiency and decarbonization 42
- Figure O.12 Priorities to advance on the interlinked goals 47
- Figure O.13 Increased concentration of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and FCS 48
- Figure O.14 Rates of multidimensional poverty and increased risks from extreme weather in IDA countries compared with other countries 50
- Figure O.15 Positive relationship between income levels and GHG emissions 52
- Maps 30
- Map O.1 Income and consumption inequality among economies 30
- Map O.2 Large populations are exposed to extreme weather events in South Asia and East Asia and Pacific, and vulnerability is high in Sub-Saharan Africa 33
