Washington: Global development is advancing at its slowest pace in about 75 years, with progress weakening across several critical areas including poverty reduction, life expectancy, education and women’s empowerment, according to the latest global development data.

The findings are part of the Atlas of Global Development 2026, which brings together more than 120,000 data points from 107 datasets to examine long-term development trends across countries and regions.

The analysis compares how quickly countries have improved their development outcomes relative to historical progress achieved by countries at similar stages of development. The results indicate that the momentum behind decades of global improvement has weakened significantly.

Development Momentum Has Slowed

For much of the past 75 years, the world experienced broad improvements in living standards. Millions of people escaped extreme poverty, life expectancy increased, school participation expanded and access to essential infrastructure improved.

However, the latest assessment shows that this progress is no longer occurring at the same speed.

The slowdown is visible across a wide range of indicators. The World Bank’s analysis identifies development progress as being at its slowest recorded pace for 15 of 26 indicators examined in the 2026 Atlas.

The areas affected include poverty reduction, health, education, access to essential services and other measures of human development.

Poverty Reduction Faces a New Challenge

Extreme poverty represents one of the clearest areas where the slowdown has become visible.

The global extreme poverty rate has fallen dramatically since the middle of the 20th century. But progress has weakened in recent years, and more than half of the world’s extremely poor now live in countries where extreme poverty has increased during the past decade.

The World Bank estimates that around 800 million people currently live in extreme poverty.

Its analysis suggests that if the slowdown in development had not occurred during the past decade, approximately 150 million fewer people would be living in extreme poverty today. Global life expectancy would also be nearly one year higher.

These figures highlight how changes in the pace of development can have consequences affecting hundreds of millions of people.

Long-Term Poverty Gains Are Under Pressure

The long-term decline in extreme poverty remains one of the world’s major development achievements.

Around 1950, approximately 60% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today, the proportion is around 10%, representing an enormous reduction over several generations.

However, the latest data indicate that the remaining poverty is increasingly concentrated in countries facing difficult development conditions, including conflict, weak institutions and limited economic opportunities.

If current development paths continue without significant improvement, the global poverty rate could rise substantially over coming decades, according to the World Bank’s scenario analysis.

Health and Life Expectancy

The slowdown is also visible in health-related indicators.

Global life expectancy increased significantly over the past several decades, but recent improvements have been weaker than the historical pace. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a major disruption, while other health challenges continue to affect progress.

The World Bank estimates that maintaining the development pace seen before the recent slowdown would have resulted in global life expectancy being almost one year higher today.

This demonstrates that development speed is not simply an economic measurement. It can directly influence how long people live and the quality of their lives.

Education Progress Is Also Slowing

Education has been another major driver of global development.

More children and young people have gained access to schooling over the past several decades, while average years of education have increased in many countries.

Yet the pace of improvement is now weaker. The World Bank’s long-term analysis includes education among the major areas where global development momentum has slowed.

The quality of available education data is itself an issue. The World Bank notes that 778 million children live in economies without a recent internationally comparable learning assessment. This makes it harder to measure learning outcomes accurately in many parts of the world.

Women Still Face Economic Barriers

Women’s economic participation remains another important development challenge.

The latest Atlas data indicate that only around one in two women globally are engaged in income-generating work. Women also remain more likely to face barriers to employment, lower wages and greater unpaid care responsibilities.

The analysis estimates that if the recent slowdown had not occurred, women’s empowerment would be around 15% higher today.

Not Every Country Is Moving at the Same Speed

Although the overall global picture shows slower progress, the data also reveal significant differences between countries.

Some economies have continued to make rapid improvements despite difficult global conditions. The World Bank highlights countries such as Rwanda, the Kyrgyz Republic, Cambodia and Ethiopia as examples where development gains have continued through reforms, infrastructure investment and stronger institutions.

This means that the global slowdown does not imply that development has stopped everywhere.

Instead, the data show a widening difference between countries that are maintaining or accelerating progress and those where improvements have stalled or reversed.

Data Could Help Identify Solutions

The World Bank’s new approach places particular emphasis on measuring the speed of development, rather than looking only at a country’s current position.

This distinction is important because two countries with similar development outcomes today may have reached those levels at very different speeds.

The Atlas uses long-term historical data to provide a more contextual view of progress and help policymakers identify where development is accelerating and where additional action may be required.

The 2026 Atlas covers five broad areas: people, prosperity, planet, infrastructure and digital transformation, providing a large-scale picture of how development is changing across the world.

A Critical Moment for Global Development

The latest figures present a mixed picture.

The world has achieved extraordinary development gains over the past 75 years, but the pace of those gains has weakened. Poverty reduction is slowing, health improvements are under pressure, educational progress remains uneven and major gender gaps persist.

At the same time, examples of countries making faster progress demonstrate that development acceleration remains possible.

The latest global data therefore point to an important challenge for governments and international institutions: maintaining and accelerating development progress while ensuring that vulnerable populations are not left behind.