Summary and ranking

Ranking on progress since 2005: 1. South Asia, 2. East Asia, 3. Sub-Saharan Africa, 4. Latin America. The ranking averages standardised gains in three World Bank indicators between 2005 and 2023, the latest year with data for all four regions [1]. South Asia led because it improved on all three measures at once: GDP per capita grew 134%, life expectancy rose 7.2 years, and secondary enrollment rose 23 points. East Asia had the largest income gain in absolute dollars, but its life-expectancy gain is smaller than the world's. Sub-Saharan Africa made the biggest health gain and the smallest income gain. Latin America started highest and gained least on every measure.

Progress since 2005, ranked

Progress score is the average of the three gains after each is standardised across the four regions (mean 0, so negative means below the four-region average). The score is relative to these four regions only, not an absolute measure. Gains cover 2005–2023. [1]

How robust is the order?

Side-by-side comparison

Three things separate the regions: where they started, how fast they moved, and whether the gap to the world average closed. South Asia and East Asia pulled away from the other two on income. Sub-Saharan Africa gained fastest on health but is still far behind on all three measures. Latin America stays ahead of the world on health and schooling, but its lead has narrowed on all three measures.

Levels, 2005 → 2023

World Bank regional aggregates: SAS, EAS, SSF, LCN and WLD. [1]

Pace of gain relative to the world

Each region's 2005–2023 gain divided by the World's gain on the same measure. Above 1.0× means the region improved faster than the world. [1]

Population and demographics (UN), 2005 → 2023

UN World Population Prospects 2024, median variant, estimates. UN regions differ slightly from World Bank regions: UN Southern Asia includes Iran, and UN Eastern and South-Eastern Asia excludes Pacific islands. [2][3]

What the demographics add

Sub-Saharan Africa added about 462 million people (+62%), almost three times the world's growth rate, which helps explain its weak income per head [2]. East Asia is the only region where the dependency ratio rose (43.8 to 46.5 per 100), because it is ageing and its fertility rate, 1.33 births per woman, is well below the world's 2.25 [2][3]. South Asia's dependency ratio fell by 13 points, to below the world's. This is the demographic dividend that tends to accompany faster income growth.

South Asia

Rank 1. South Asia had the strongest all-round progress. It grew fastest on income, led on schooling gains, and closed most of its gaps to the world average.

South Asia's income gain is the largest relative gain in the four regions, and it also made large health and schooling gains: life expectancy rose 7.2 years to 72.3, 98.6% of the world level [1]. The gap that remains is income. GDP per capita is only 18.9% of the world's, and in absolute dollars the gap widened, from about $7,700 to $9,500, because the world started from a higher base [1]. Growth also slowed: 5.3% a year from 2005 to 2015 and 4.3% from 2015 to 2023 [1]. Life expectancy fell to 67.8 years in 2021 before recovering to 72.3 [1].

East Asia

Rank 2. East Asia is the only one of the four regions that is already ahead of the world on all three measures, and it started ahead.

East Asia has no deficit to name against the world, so its "gap" is the measure where its lead is thinnest. That is life expectancy: it gained 3.4 years, below the world's 4.2, so its lead over the world shrank. East Asia's other weak spot is demographic: low fertility and an ageing population [2]. Its income growth slowed after 2015 (4.6% a year before, 3.5% since) but stayed double the world's pace [1]. The "East Asia & Pacific" aggregate includes high-income economies such as Japan, Korea and Australia. Its low- and middle-income subset (EAP) shows an even bigger income jump, +212%, and a life-expectancy gain of 3.5 years [4].

Sub-Saharan Africa

Rank 3. Sub-Saharan Africa made the biggest health gain of any region but the smallest income gain, and it started furthest behind on all three measures.

Life expectancy rose from 78% to 85% of the world level, the fastest convergence in any region [1]. Secondary enrollment also rose 14.4 points, a little faster than the world's gain, but only to 45.7%, which is 59% of the world value [1]. Income is the problem. GDP per capita grew only 15% in 18 years, from $1,367 to $1,571 (0.8% a year), and fell between 2019 and 2023 [1]. Population grew 62% over the same period, so total output has had to grow much faster than output per head just to keep income per person rising [2]. In PPP terms the picture is similar: +18% against +45% for the world [1].

Latin America

Rank 4. Latin America started highest of the four developing regions and moved least on all three measures, so it has lost ground against the world.

Latin America is still ahead of the world on life expectancy (75.6 years, 103% of the world) and secondary enrollment (97.5%, 126%), but its lead on each measure is narrower than in 2005 [1]. Income is the weak point. GDP per capita has crawled up since 2015, at 0.3% a year, against 1.7% for the world [1]. Life expectancy fell to 71.8 years in 2021 and recovered to 75.6 in 2023 [1]. The earlier team summary called GDP the region's biggest gain because the dollar change was large, but the region grew by less than the world on GDP, so no measure is a gain in relative terms. Secondary enrollment is the best of the three.

Method and robustness

Method

Each region is a World Bank aggregate (South Asia SAS; East Asia & Pacific EAS; Sub-Saharan Africa SSF; Latin America & Caribbean LCN), compared with the World aggregate WLD [1][5]. Each indicator is measured from 2005 to 2023: GDP per capita (constant 2015 US$) as percentage growth, life expectancy as years gained, and gross secondary enrollment as percentage points gained. The three gains are standardised across the four regions and averaged with equal weights. UN World Population Prospects 2024 supplies population, fertility, median age and dependency ratio [2][3].

The regional analyses were produced by two teammates working in parallel on separate regions, and they were reconciled here. This step re-ran every figure from the combined dataset and re-fetched the dependency ratio, which two files had polluted with multiple age definitions. The East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income) series was fetched separately [4]. Teammates defined "biggest gain" differently (relative to world pace, or in dollars). This report uses one rule for all four regions: the gain measured against the world's gain on the same measure.

Ranking robustness

Rank (1 = most progress) under alternative scoring choices. Rows that differ from the baseline are the East Asia = EAP rank average, the two drop-one variants that omit GDP or secondary enrollment, and absolute GDP gain. [1][4]

Caveats

Dataset

The accompanying dataset holds every series used: the four regions, the World benchmark, and the alternative East Asia definitions, with World Bank and UN rows tagged by region definition.