Our Mission

Rising debt levels are increasingly a concern. Many emerging and developing economies have borrowed heavily and their hard-won reductions of public debt before the global financial crisis have eroded. Emerging and developing economy debt has climbed by an average of 15 percentage points to 51 percent of GDP in 2018, the World Bank’s June 2019 Global Economic Prospects: Heightened Tensions, Subdued Investment reports. Read More.

Smoking prevalence is much higher among adult men than adult women worldwide. One out of three men smokes, and only one in 16 women (i.e. 6 percent of women) smokes a tobacco product on a daily or non-daily basis. However, even though women smoke much less, they are often exposed to harm with high levels of second-hand smoking.

Prevalence of smoking also has stark regional variation. Overall, smoking is most prevalent in Europe and Central Asia (29 percent), and least prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa (10 percent). Read More. 

Oil prices will moderate from their current highs and be lower on average in 2019 than in 2018 on slower-than-expected global growth and rising non-OPEC production, according to our latest Commodity Markets Outlook. Metal, agriculture prices are on track to stage a partial recovery, with momentum likely to pick up in 2020. Here's the Commodity Markets Outlook in six charts. Explore the Data.