World economy projected to grow by 2.7% in 2024
Since its last forecast in January, the United Nations (UN) has projected the world economy to do better by 2.7% in 2024 and 2.8% in 2025.
The world's economic report for May by the UN shows a leap from the 2.4% forecast made in January, pointing to a better outlook for several countries like the United States of America, Brazil, India, and Russia.
In an X post made by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the organisation wrote "World economy forecast to grow by 2.7% in 2024 & 2.8% in 2025, reflecting improved prospects in the USA and several large economies. The outlook is only cautiously optimistic as economic vulnerabilities remain," while "The outlook for China registers a small uptick with growth now expected to be 4.8% in 2024."
According to Africanews, the director of the UN’s Economic Analysis and Policy Division, Shantanu Mukherjee, who spoke at the ceremony to launch the report, said inflation remained the weakness of the global economy.
“Globally, energy and food prices are inching upward in recent months, but I think a bit more insidious even is the persistence of inflation above the 2 percent central bank target in many developed countries,” he said.
Despite the positive outlook for the global economy, Africa gets a negative forecast as it is expected to plunge further down by 3.3% against the initial forecast of 3.5% in January 2024.
The UN DESA cites low turnover in large economies like Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa as well as seven debt-ridden nations as the reason for Africa's downgrade.
"On the other hand, the economic outlook for Africa has deteriorated since the last release, with expected growth lowered by 0.2 percentage points for 2024, threatening adverse impacts for many of the world’s poor. On average, global growth in the coming years is expected to remain below the average of 3.2 percent during 2010–2019," part of the report reads.
Reacting to this negative forecast, Mukherjee shared that the continent's expected negative economic growth "is particularly worrying because Africa is home to about 430 million (people) living in extreme poverty and close to 40 percent share of the global undernourished population".
