Risk of financial ‘wasted decade’ for poor countries, World Bank warns

Poor countries have been hit hard since the arrival of Covid. Photograph: Biel Aliño/EPA

The global economy is set to slow for a third successive year in 2024 and is now on course for its weakest half-decade of growth since the early 1990s, the World Bank has warned.

The Washington-based organisation said poor countries were being especially hard hit by a series of setbacks since the arrival of the Covid pandemic and there was a risk that the 2020s would be a “wasted” decade.