“Frontier market” economies—a cluster of mostly middle-income economies regarded as the proving ground for the next generation of economic superstars—have largely failed to live up to their potential in recent decades, a new World Bank study has found. On average, investment growth per person in the 2020s so far has been less than half the rate in the 2010s. Yet the experience of the top performers among frontier markets reveals lessons for the 56 economies currently in the cluster.

For global investors looking for opportunities beyond high-income economies, frontier markets constitute the middle of the range: they are generally less tightly integrated into global financial markets than emerging markets but more so than other developing economies that belong to neither the “emerging” nor the “frontier” classes. The creation of these two asset classes in the 1980s and 1990s—an initiative that was greatly aided by the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation—helped channel significant private investment flows into developing countries.

“Excluding a handful of economies that have become investment grade over the past 25 years, frontier markets may well be the biggest disappointment in economic development,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “People in frontier markets are, on average, better educated and live longer than those in other developing economies. The quality of their policies and institutions is better. Some of them are rich in natural resources. But they haven’t converted these advantages into advancement—and they remain the developing world’s lowest-hanging fruit.

Frontier markets today are home to 1.8 billion people—a fifth of the world population—and they are expected to add nearly 800 million more over the next 25 years, more than the rest of the world combined. More than a third of frontier markets are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many frontier markets are rich in minerals that will be needed for new technologies concerning renewable energy, telecommunications, and consumer electronics. They often boast stronger institutions than other developing economies. In addition, they hold a special appeal for investors: over the past 25 years, stocks in frontier markets have moved largely independently of global financial conditions, which have explained only one in eight of the ups and downs in frontier-market stocks, far less than in advanced economies or emerging markets.

“These economies will play an important role in addressing the jobs challenge facing developing economies—they will account for nearly a fifth of the 1.2 billion young people in developing countries who will reach working age in the next decade,” said M. Ayhan Kose, the World Bank Group’s Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the Prospects Group. “The top-performing frontier markets have followed different paths. But they’ve converged on some common strategies—growth-friendly policies, investment-supporting infrastructure, better fiscal management, and an institutional environment that attracts private investment. The payoffs have been large: per capita income in the top quarter nearly quadrupled over the past 25 years.”

The typical frontier-market economy, however, has made little progress in attracting investment since 2000. Over the past 25 years, the growth rate of investment per person in these economies has ratcheted down, dropping to just 2% in the 2020s, less than half the rate in the previous two decades. Frontier-market economies today account for just 3.1% of global capital inflows, and less than 5% of global economic output.

Measured by laws on the books, frontier markets have made substantial progress in opening up their financial markets the past 25 years: they are now about half as open as advanced economies, up from about one-fifth as open in 2000. Actual financial-market development, however, has been sluggish. Domestic-currency markets, for example, remain relatively underdeveloped and domestic banks and financial institutions tend to lend less to private households and businesses than they do in emerging markets.

Greater fiscal discipline will be key to frontier markets delivering on their potential in the years ahead. Government spending as a share of GDP has been rising, but revenues have remained flat. The result has been a surge in debt burdens—and debt defaults. Today the typical frontier market spends more on net interest payments on its debt—about 2.5% of GDP—than is the case among emerging markets or other developing economies. Nearly 40% of frontier markets defaulted at least once between 2000 and 2024. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, frontier markets have recorded more defaults than all other countries combined.

Even so, some frontier markets have done better at navigating such pitfalls. Viet Nam, one of the world’s poorest countries at the turn of the century, now ranks among the 10 fastest-growing economies of the past 25 years. Rwanda emerged from civil war in the 1990s to become one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest economic success stories, relying heavily on tourism and other services. In addition, four frontier markets—Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Panama, and Romania—have attained high-income status since 2012. To make the most of their potential, these economies will need to do much more than simply open up their markets. They will need to develop them and create the institutional safeguards needed to manage them.

The global economy is proving more resilient than anticipated despite persistent trade tensions and policy uncertainty, according to the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report. Global growth is projected to remain broadly steady over the next two years, easing to 2.6% in 2026 before rising to 2.7% in 2027, an upward revision from the June forecast.

The resilience reflects better-than-expected growth—especially in the United States, which accounts for about two-thirds of the upward revision to the forecast in 2026. Even so, if these forecasts hold, the 2020s are on track to be the weakest decade for global growth since the 1960s. The sluggish pace is widening the gap in living standards across the world, the report finds: at the end of 2025, nearly all advanced economies enjoyed per capita incomes exceeding their 2019 levels, but about one in four developing economies had lower per capita incomes.

In 2025, growth was supported by a surge in trade ahead of policy changes and swift readjustments in global supply chains. These boosts are expected to fade in 2026 as trade and domestic demand soften. However, the easing global financial conditions and fiscal expansion in several large economies should help cushion the slowdown, according to the report. Global inflation is projected to edge down to 2.6% in 2026, reflecting softer labor markets and lower energy prices. Growth is expected to pick up in 2027 as trade flows adjust and policy uncertainty diminishes. 

“With each passing year, the global economy has become less capable of generating growth and seemingly more resilient to policy uncertainty,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “But economic dynamism and resilience cannot diverge for long without fracturing public finance and credit markets. Over the coming years, the world economy is set to grow slower than it did in the troubled 1990s—while carrying record levels of public and private debt. To avert stagnation and joblessness, governments in emerging and advanced economies must aggressively liberalize private investment and trade, rein in public consumption, and invest in new technologies and education.”

 In 2026, growth in developing economies is expected to slow to 4% from 4.2% in 2025 before edging up to 4.1% in 2027 as trade tensions ease, commodity prices stabilize, financial conditions improve, and investment flows strengthen. Growth is projected to be higher in low-income countries, reaching an average of 5.6% over 2026–27, buoyed by firming domestic demand, recovering exports, and moderating inflation. However, this  will not be sufficient to narrow the income gap between developing and advanced economies. Per capita income growth in developing economies is projected to be 3% in 2026—about a percentage point below its 2000-2019 average. At this pace, per capita income in developing economies is expected to be only 12% of the level in advanced economies. 

These trends could intensify the job-creation challenge confronting developing economies, where 1.2 billion young people will reach working age over the next decade. Overcoming the jobs challenge will require a comprehensive policy effort centered on three pillars. The first is strengthening physical, digital, and human capital to raise productivity and employability. The second is improving the business environment by enhancing policy credibility and regulatory certainty so firms can expand. The third is mobilizing private capital at scale to support investment. Together, these measures can help shift job creation toward more productive and formal employment, supporting income growth and poverty alleviation.

In addition, developing economies need to bolster their fiscal sustainability, which has been eroded in recent years by overlapping shocks, growing development needs, and rising debt-servicing costs. A special-focus chapter of the report provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of fiscal rules by developing economies, which set clear limits on government borrowing and spending to help manage public finances. These rules are generally linked to stronger growth, higher private investment, more stable financial sectors, and a greater capacity to cope with external shocks. 

“With public debt in emerging and developing economies at its highest level in more than half a century, restoring fiscal credibility has become an urgent priority,” said M. Ayhan Kose, the World Bank Group’s Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the Prospects Group. “Well-designed fiscal rules can help governments stabilize debt, rebuild policy buffers, and respond more effectively to shocks. But rules alone are not enough: credibility, enforcement, and political commitment ultimately determine whether fiscal rules deliver stability and growth.”

More than half of developing economies now have at least one fiscal rule in place. These can include limits on fiscal deficits, public debt, government expenditures, or revenue collection. Developing economies that adopt fiscal rules typically see their budget balance improve by 1.4 percentage points of GDP after five years, once interest payments and the ups and downs of the business cycle are accounted for. Use of fiscal rules also increases by 9 percentage points the likelihood of a multi-year improvement in budget balances. However, the medium- and long-term benefits of fiscal rules depend heavily on the strength of institutions, the economic context in which the rules are introduced, and how the rules are designed, the report finds.

A proliferating set of international standards—covering everything from food labeling to the specifications of 5G cellular networks—is steadily reshaping the global economic order, delivering hefty benefits to the wealthy nations and large multinational companies that set them while leaving many developing countries on the sidelines, according to a new World Bank report.

Today, standards are foundational economic infrastructure, as vital to prosperity as roads or ports, according to the World Development Report 2025: Standards for Development, which provides the first comprehensive analysis of the landscape of global standards. By making the transportation of goods seamless, the standardization of the shipping container boosted global trade to a greater extent than all of the trade agreements of the last 60 years, the report notes. Since the turn of the century, however, standards have also become weapons in trade wars: non-tariff measures such pesticide specifications or labeling requirements, for example, now affect 90 percent of global trade, up from just 15% in the late 1990s.

“Standards are both central and unsung today,” said Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “When they’re set right, they go unnoticed: the ship sails through the canal, the building withstands an earthquake, a kilogram weighs the same in Kenya as in Canada, and no one gives the gains that come a second thought. The standardized shipping container might well have catalyzed more trade in manufactured goods than all the trade deals put together. Digital standards could do the same for the services trade. When countries are active in adapting, aligning, and authoring standards, they are a powerful tool for growth and poverty reduction. This report is the first assessment of the role of standards in economic development–and a call to developing nations to make them a core component of their development strategies.”

“The World Bank’s decision to dedicate the 2025 World Development Report to standards sends a powerful signal: international standards are no longer invisible infrastructure – they are critical enablers of sustainable, inclusive development,” said Sergio Mujica, Secretary-General of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the world’s largest standard-setting body, which surveyed 173 national standards bodies in support of the data-gathering work for the report. “Unlocking the full development potential of standards means ensuring all countries can participate in their creation and implement them. This report is a timely call to action to strengthen global participation and cooperation in standardization.”

The global appetite for standards has surged. More than half of the 20,000 standards issued over the last seven decades by ISO have been created since 2000, the report notes. In 2024 alone, key global standard-setting bodies issued more than 7,000 standards. Not enough developing countries are at the table when standards are written—because they often lack the resources and expertise needed to participate. On average, they sit on less than one-third of the technical committees that determine global standards at ISO, and even fewer in other bodies. Supporting broader, more strategic participation is key to ensuring that standards are globally relevant and reflect diverse development needs and contexts.

Turning standards into a springboard for development requires a deliberate strategy. The report proposes an adapt-align-author framework for countries at different stages of development.  At low levels of development, countries should adapt international standards to local realities, so firms can learn and markets can grow. It isn’t wise to blindly copy the most stringent global standards—local ambitions should match local capacity. 

As local capacity grows, countries can align with international standards, cutting duplication, easing market entry, and helping firms compete abroad. At the same time, countries can shape international standards, ensuring they reflect national priorities. Finally, as they grow wealthier, developing countries should author new standards or update existing ones. 

Japan exemplifies how countries can use standards to turbocharge development, according to the report. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Japanese consumer exports were widely considered to be of low quality and unreliable. But the country focused on becoming a high-quality manufacturer, initially copying and then improving upon ideas from abroad. It did so through the Japanese Standards Association and the widespread adoption of Total Quality Management, which transformed the country into a global paragon for quality.

“The lesson from the most successful economies is that standards are not just technical rules—they are the foundation for innovation and global competitiveness,” said Xavier Giné, Director of the 2025 World Development Report. “Countries that treat standards as part of their development strategy—rather than as an afterthought—are the ones that have managed to climb the ladder of prosperity.”

Source: World Bank Group

Indonesia’s commitment to boosting its profile in Cameroon was solidified by Ambassador Agung Cahaya Sumirat, who used the “Discover Indonesia” exhibition as a key platform for promotion.

“We want to continue intensifying interactive and integrated promotion of Indonesia so that Indonesia’s profile gains more space in the hearts of the Cameroonian people,” said Ambassador Agung in a press release from the Indonesian Embassy (KBRI) in Yaoundé in Jakarta, Wednesday, November 19, 2025, as quoted by Antara.

Ambassador Agung, who is also concurrently the Indonesian Ambassador to Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic, welcomed the high enthusiasm of the Cameroonian public for Indonesia’s various promotional activities.

KBRI Yaoundé presented the first-ever integrated exhibition themed “Discover Indonesia” at PlaYce Yaoundé from November 14–16, 2025. The exhibition featured information on Indonesia’s history and diplomacy, the diversity of Nusantara’s arts and culture, such as traditional musical instruments and regional clothing, as well as opportunities for higher education scholarships for Cameroonian students.

The event also served traditional Indonesian culinary items such as kue lumpur (mud cake), cassava chips, tahu isi (stuffed tofu), dadar gulung (rolled coconut pancake), and bakwan (vegetable fritters).

The atmosphere of the exhibition became more festive, according to the statement, when the Mandau Dance and mass dances were performed, accompanied by songs like Tabola Bale, Gemu Fa Mi Re, and Hioko Tobelo.

“Discover Indonesia,” which also served as a promotional event for the Trade Expo Indonesia and the Bali & Beyond Travel Fair 2026, included a business desk showcasing various authentic Indonesian products, ranging from processed snacks and cosmetics to helmets.

A number of business visitors showed interest in learning more about import opportunities, distribution, and potential collaborations with Indonesian entrepreneurs. A visitor named Youssouph admitted he was happy because he “got a new picture of Indonesia.”

Meanwhile, another visitor, Claudine Ngodem, who came with her family, appreciated the batik coloring activity, which she found interesting and educational for children. ***

Source: Radio Republic Indonesia