Economic growth is not the only condition for development,
but it is a necessary condition – which explains why many
of these same countries are also making enormous strides
in improved health, educational attainment, living standards
and poverty reduction. As the United Nations observed
in 2013, “never in history have the living conditions and
prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and
so fast” (United Nations Development Programme, 2013).
At the same time, the recent slowdown of several – though
certainly not most – developing countries in the aftermath
of the Great Recession of 2008-09 is a reminder that
future progress is neither inevitable nor irreversible.
Successfully integrating into a turbulent, volatile, everchanging
global economy is a difficult process for
developing countries, made even more challenging by the
need to share out domestically the benefits and costs of
economic growth and adjustment if political support for
trade opening is to be sustained. A number of economic
and political obstacles – whether self-inflicted or inflicted
by others – could still prevent developing countries from
continuing along their current growth trajectory.