Growing gulf between rich and poor countries ‘recipe for much darker future’, says UN

Human development report finds the pandemic, conflict, globalisation and populism have combined to disproportionately affect lower-income countries

The gulf between rich and poor countries continues to grow, according to the UN, furthering the reversal of a 20-year trend where the gap steadily shrank until 2020.

The latest human development report found that although each of the 38 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries has recovered from the Covid pandemic, only half of the least-developed countries have done so.