ABSTRACT
This chapter characterizes the state of development with the latest data using the seven dimensions of development. It defines basic human needs principally in terms of health and education. The wellbeing is first and foremost measured in terms of real per capita income. Developing regions are split into two subgroups on the basis of the convergence criterion. Average per capita income in the high-income countries was, in 2016, $39,675 compared to $4,299 in the middle-income countries, and $703 in the low-income countries. A way of looking at the development problem is to compare the concentrations of population and of income between high-income and low- and middle-income countries. Over the 1980–2016 period, convergence in per capita income was confined to East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia. Income growth can be quite erratic, as affected by a variety of crises, more recently the “triple crisis”: finance, food, and climate change.
