Our World in Data

How fast is the global economy growing, and where might it be headed next? One of the most widely cited sources to help answer these questions is the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook. The report harmonizes national data, allowing cross-country comparisons and a global perspective. The IMF also adds its own near-term projections. In its latest release, the IMF projected global GDP growth of 3.1% in 2026 and 3.2% in 2027 — a downgrade from earlier this year. The revision falls almost entirely on emerging markets and developing economies. Forecasts for advanced economies are largely unchanged. Keep in mind that these forecasts are revised at each release, sometimes substantially. Our colleague Pablo Arriagada recently updated our chart with the IMF’s latest release; the next one is expected in October. Explore the data for all countries in the interactive version of this chart: https://lnkd.in/eSUVatN3

Japan closed nearly all of its nuclear plants after Fukushima, but some are coming back online— Japan closed down most of its nuclear plants after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011, and nuclear production dropped dramatically. You can see this in the chart above, which shows Japan's electricity mix since 1985. It’s based on data from the Energy Institute. Fossil fuel plants — notably coal and gas — were ramped up to keep the lights on. The first nuclear reactors only came back online in 2015, under stricter rules from a new safety regulator created after the disaster. As of early 2026, 15 reactors are running — out of 54 before Fukushima — and nuclear's share of electricity is still only around a third of its pre-2011 level. (This Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Arriagada.) Read our article on the death toll of the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters: https://lnkd.in/gg6VppW7 Subscribe to our Data Insights newsletter to receive our bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, right to your inbox every few days: https://lnkd.in/gd_4ubhw

Why do we need to know about progress if we are concerned about the world's largest problems? Let’s look at one of the very worst global problems of all — the death of children. One of the leading causes of death for children is malaria, which kills more than 300,000 children each year. The death rate from malaria has decreased significantly in the past 20 years, as you can see in the chart. People who study malaria see several reasons that make it very likely that continued progress against this disease is possible. The factors that are holding us back in the fight against malaria are the three factors that often limit our progress: 1) More money would make more progress possible — e.g., buying more insecticide-treated bed nets, which are a very effective way to reduce malaria’s death toll. 2) More people who set themselves the goal to work towards progress can make a difference — e.g., researchers and others who developed not one but two vaccines against malaria and are now rolling them out to those most in need. 3) More attention and the understanding that it is a solvable problem would make more progress possible — it’s likely we would not see a lack of funding and talented people working on malaria if malaria were to get the *attention* it deserves. 300,000 child deaths per year means 820 dead children on any average day. What is true about malaria is true about many of the problems the world faces. Making progress is hard, but it is possible. The progress made over the last two centuries has not ended in our lifetimes. There are possibilities to make the world a better place. It is on us to realize this. Read more in our mission statement by our founder, Max Roser: https://lnkd.in/gK4AW5NC

How quickly has global air travel recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic was the worst shock the commercial airline industry has ever faced. In 2020, global passenger traffic collapsed almost overnight. How much has the industry recovered since? Passenger traffic was back above its pre-pandemic peak by 2024, as you can see in the chart. The share of available seats filled by paying passengers has also fully recovered, and now sits slightly above its 2019 level. Our colleague Veronika Samborska recently updated this data, which comes from the International Civil Aviation Organization, compiled and published by Airlines for America. Explore the updated data in our interactive charts: https://lnkd.in/eu7ip77g

The world is warming despite natural fluctuations from the El Niño cycle— In 2025, the world was around 1.4 °C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times. But temperatures haven’t increased linearly; there have been spikes and dips along the way. Many of these spikes and dips are caused by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a natural climate cycle caused by changes in wind patterns and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that affects global temperatures and climate. There are two key phases of the ENSO cycle: La Niña, which causes cooler global temperatures, and El Niño, which brings warmer conditions. The world cycles between El Niño and La Niña phases every two to seven years. There are also “neutral” periods between these phases where the world is not in either extreme. As you can see in the chart, global temperatures during recent La Niña years were hotter than El Niño years just a few decades before. “Cool” years today are hotter than “warm” years not too long ago. Our colleague Veronika Samborska recently updated this data, which she does every month. Explore the updated data in our interactive charts: https://lnkd.in/en9hvSdp

Cereal yields in Ghana have increased much faster over the past decade— Crop yields across Africa have lagged far behind the rest of the world — the regional average is around 2.5 times lower than the global average. But some countries in the region show that yields can grow much faster. Ghana is one example. In the chart, you can see its cereal yields compared to the average for Africa as a whole. Several government programs contributed to this growth. In 2008, the Ghanaian government launched a fertilizer subsidy program; it had some impact on yields but was relatively modest. The largest shift came from the introduction of the Planting for Food and Jobs program in 2017, which dedicated large public funds to distributing improved seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs to farmers. The data shown is based on nationally reported statistics, and some researchers question the exact size of the reported gains. But the result that yields have gone up looks robust: independent modeled assessments estimate that maize and rice production are over 40% higher than they would have been without the program. (This Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie.) Read Hannah’s article on why increasing agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa is one of today’s most important challenges: https://lnkd.in/dY8musPD

✍️ New article: “Childhood stunting fell dramatically over the 20th century” One in four children in the world today suffers from “stunting”. That’s 150 *million* children under five. A stunted child is too short for their age due to poor nutrition and frequent infections. Stunting suggests that their physical and cognitive development have been hindered, and the effects can last a lifetime. In many countries, stunting was once prevalent but has now been nearly eliminated. Japan is one such success story that has particularly high-quality data. But there are still many countries, especially in Asia and Africa, where stunting affects more than a third of all children. You can see this in the chart. How have some countries made so much progress against stunting? And what can other countries where rates are still high learn from this? In a new article, Hannah Ritchie and Tuna Acisu answer these questions by zooming in on Japan. Their analysis is made possible by a crucial new dataset published by Eric Schneider and colleagues. Before World War II, Japan focused on tackling infectious disease, particularly through the expansion of clean, piped water. Stunting declined at a moderate pace. After the war, they tackled both disease *and* diet, with diversified foods, school lunch programs, and more. This multifaceted approach made progress nearly three times faster. Read more about how Japan reduced stunting and what other countries can learn from this in Hannah and Tuna’s new article: https://lnkd.in/eyGKnuhT

Global biofuel production has grown sevenfold in the last 20 years, despite the rise of electric cars In the late 20th century, a handful of countries — led by Brazil and the United States — turned to liquid biofuels to reduce their dependence on foreign oil markets, producing transport fuels from cheap crops instead. In the early 2000s, interest in biofuels ramped up sharply, and not just in the Americas. They came to be seen as a leading method to decarbonize road transport. This was because today’s alternative to the combustion engine, the electric car, was still far too expensive. Over the last two decades, global liquid biofuel production has grown sevenfold, as the chart shows. Electric vehicles are now far cheaper and, in some places, cost-competitive with petrol cars, so biofuels are no longer seen as the central answer to low-carbon transport. Yet, the world produces more of them than ever, and this is expected to grow over the coming decade, largely due to fuel standards and national policies that have promoted them. (This Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie.) Read our article: “Putting solar panels on land used for biofuels would produce enough electricity for all cars and trucks to go electric”: https://lnkd.in/e22d9svw

Who Americans spend their time with changes a lot over the course of their lives — read about this and much more in our latest edition of The OWID Brief on Substack! https://lnkd.in/dixAUASM

More than a million people die from road injuries every year— Around 1.3 million people die from road injuries across the world every year. That includes the deaths of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. That’s around 2.4% of deaths from all causes. As the chart shows, this death toll has been similar for decades, in the range of 1.25 to 1.35 million deaths each year. However, with a larger global population and many more cars on the road, this means the death rate from road injuries — the number of deaths per 100,000 people — has fallen. (This Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Arriagada.) Explore road injury data by type for individual countries: https://lnkd.in/eNGDYJMK Subscribe to our Data Insights newsletter to receive our bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, right to your inbox every few days: https://lnkd.in/gd_4ubhw