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Experts are sounding the alarm bell on reduced global economic growth momentum following the recent series of calamities that have sent shockwaves across the world. It is estimated growth rate will fall to the lowest level in three decades by 2030.

They warn that this downturn is exacerbating a range of interconnected global challenges, including the climate crisis and a weakening social contract, which are collectively reversing progress in global development.

The two years of Covid-19 pandemic, between 2020 and 2022, that led to lockdowns caused a surge in public debt levels and a reversal of global development progress as many countries were thrown deep into financial crisis.

Even before the world’s economy could recover fully from the pandemic, the much-needed peaceful environment has continued to be polarized by geopolitical tensions and conflicts among nations resulting in far-reaching implications for technology, growth and development.

In early 2022 Russia and Ukraine went to war at a time when there was rising inflation since the coronavirus outbreak had already disrupted business operations. The two countries are global food basket, especially with wheat as well as energy and when the war erupted, almost the entire world reported a high cost of living.

A report released yesterday during the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland revealed that most countries continue to grow in ways that are neither sustainable nor inclusive and are limited in their ability to absorb or generate innovation and minimize their contribution and susceptibility to global shocks.

Economic growth

“Reigniting global growth will be essential to addressing key challenges, yet growth alone is not enough,” said Saadia Zahidi World Economic Forum Managing Director.

“The report proposes a new way for assessing economic growth that balances efficiency with long-term sustainability, resilience and equity, as well as innovation for the future, aligning with both global and national priorities.”

The report dubbed The Future of Growth Report 2024 assessed the global economies under four pillars comprising inclusivity, resilience, sustainability and innovation.

Both inclusivity and resilience pillars got the highest global average scores, 55.9 out of 100 and 52.8 out of 100 respectively.

According to the report, inclusiveness is key in assessing growth, as it indicates the extent to which an economy’s trajectory involves all stakeholders in the benefits and opportunities it creates while the resilience pillar captures the extent to which an economy’s trajectory can withstand and bounce back from shocks.

The global average of the sustainability dimension which measures the ability of an economy’s trajectory to keep its ecological footprint within finite environmental boundaries, is 46.8 out of 100.

The innovativeness dimension – which captures the extent to which an economy’s trajectory can absorb and evolve in response to new technological, social, institutional and organizational developments to improve the longer-term quality of growth – attains the lowest global score, with a global average of 45.2 out of 100.

“At an individual level, none of the 107 economies covered by the report have attained a score higher than 80 on any of the framework’s four dimensions,” the report says. Kenya which is placed in the lower middle-income economies cluster scored 57.2 points on sustainability beating Asian economic giant India which scored 56 points on the same pillar.