High-income countries hold 16% of the world's people yet generate 29% of its waste. As global volumes head toward 3.86 billion tonnes by 2050, the World Bank's What a Waste 3.0 shows consumption, not headcount, drives the trash burden.
According to economists at the Asian Development Bank, AI could increase annual growth in the region’s advanced economies by as much as 2.1 percentage points by 2030.
Around 55% of the workforce within the region has been in the informal sector for nearly 20 years, even though some measures were taken to simplify business registration and reduce hiring costs.
The OECD outlook for 2026 suggests that the global economy will continue to be highly uneven, with India growing by 7.1% while some major industrialized countries are expected to grow by less than 2%.
The World Bank Group's private capital mobilization jumped from $35 billion in FY22 to a record $112 billion in FY26, but 1.2 billion young people will need work while only 420 million jobs are projected.
Investment and business climate reforms in the agrifood system could create the equivalent of 5 million additional jobs across the Middle East and North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan by 2050, according to the World Bank's Building Food Security, Creating Jobs report.
AI and data centers are intensifying electricity demand, and tech firms are dominating renewable energy investments. Electricity is set to become a critical consumption area and transformation driver in the near future.
An immediate drop in traffic of over 95% has led to an immediate increase in electricity prices, fertilizer prices, and food prices in the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for roughly a tenth of the world’s ship traffic, UNCTAD notes.
The El Niño climate phenomenon is expected to intensify into a very strong event by the end of 2026, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). With a near-100% likelihood of persistence through February 2027, the warming tropical Pacific could increase the risk of extreme heat, floods and droughts across different parts of the world.
