Africa's growth prospects are bright, and developing countries are driving global growth, says UN report

Abstract

Global growth recovery is facing favourable prospects for 2014 and 2015, with developing countries backstopping previous growth slowdowns and emerging to drive global growth. This is a key message at the Addis Ababa launch of the full version of the 2014 World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) report. While the global economy grew at only 2.1 per cent in 2013, this is expected to rebound to 3.0 per cent in 2014 and 3.3 per cent in 2015. Growth recovery will be driven by continuing strong performances in developing countries, as well as increasing growth in the United States, the emergence of the Euro area from a protracted recession, and positive outcomes from expansionary policies in Japan. Other key macroeconomic trends espoused in the report include continuing moderate levels of inflation, sluggish growth in international trade, moderating commodity prices which are still at historically-high levels, increasing costs of financing and borrowing, and a moderate contraction in ODA flows to developing countries (down to 0.29 per cent of donor countries’ gross national income).