The global economy has staged a remarkably strong recovery from the pandemic. Five years after the 2020 global recession, global income per person is about 10 percent higher than in 2019, making this rebound stronger than the recovery that followed the 2009 global financial crisis. This resilience is extraordinary given the succession of shocks that followed the pandemic—from severe supply chain disruptions and the surge in inflation to the sharpest global monetary tightening in decades and rising geopolitical tensions.

Yet this headline success hides an uncomfortable reality: the recovery has been deeply uneven. While advanced economies have rebounded strongly, many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), particularly the most vulnerable, are still struggling to regain lost ground. This divergence matters greatly because many of these economies must generate millions of jobs for rapidly expanding young populations in the years ahead.