Somber economic forecast threatens progress on the global goals

“This is not the time for short-term thinking or knee-jerk fiscal austerity,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2023 released its grim global economic outlook on 25 January 2023.

A series of severe and mutually reinforcing shocks — the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and resulting food and energy crises, surging inflation, debt distress, as well as the climate emergency — battered the world economy in 2022.

Against this backdrop, world output growth is projected to slow from an estimated 3.0 per cent in 2022 to 1.9 per cent in 2023, marking one of the lowest growth rates in recent decades.

While global growth is forecast to moderately pick up to 2.7 per cent in 2024, this is still highly dependent on the pace and sequence of further monetary tightening, the course and consequences of the war in Ukraine, and the possibility of further supply-chain disruptions.

“The current crises are hitting the most vulnerable the hardest — often through no fault of their own,” said Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. “The global community needs to step up joint efforts to avert human suffering and support an inclusive and sustainable future for all,” he added.

The World Economic Situation and Prospects 2023 calls on Governments to pursue a more finely calibrated monetary policy and reallocate public spending that will go towards creating jobs and reinvigorating growth.

International cooperation is fundamental to help turn around the world economy and accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

The full report includes regional economic outlooks for developed economies, economies in transition, and the developing economies of Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Western Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. It is available at https://desapublications.un.org/