Last week, influential politicians and business leaders gathered in , to “unlock new sources of growth” as a fix for the world’s many crises. Poverty, climate collapse, and political instability—we were told all could be solved if we just grew our economies a little faster.
This is a familiar message we’ve heard at countless global gatherings—from the G7 to the G20 and IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington D.C. But my six years of experience as the have taught me one critical lesson: it’s deeply wrong. Economic growth isn’t a magic solution. And it will never end global poverty.
Historically, the global economy everyone is so desperate to expand has vast wealth into the hands of a few, trapped millions in and work to boost corporate profits, relied on the and the exploitation of cheap labor in the Global South, and caused to the planet.
This isn’t a system that’s strayed slightly off course. It’s one that’s fundamentally unfit for its purpose.
At Davos, economic growth wasn’t defended cautiously—it was celebrated. U.S. President Donald Trump of growth “no country has ever seen before.” And International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva the 3.3% global growth forecast as “beautiful but not enough.”
When top leaders face claims that growth may do more harm than good, their go-to response is “green growth”—the idea that, done right, economic growth can come with a smaller ecological footprint. China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng’s Davos speech was with references to “global green and low-carbon development,” “green production capacity,” “green finance,” and a “green and prosperous future.” Yet even under ideal conditions, a shows that completely decoupling gross domestic product (GDP) from environmental harm—growing the economy while cutting resource use, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution all at once—is impossible. Technological advances simply can’t compensate for an economic model built on endless production and consumption.
As I told the UN Human Rights Council when presenting my 2024 report on , the global economy in its current form will only ever serve a tiny minority. And it will always do so at the expense of the planet and the vast majority of people who live on it.
Given the evidence we have, it’s unbelievable that world leaders still shout from Davos’s heights that we need more growth. One has to wonder if they—as members of the economic elite—stand to benefit personally, or if they’ve just run out of ideas.
Outside the conference halls, though, creativity is alive and well. This week’s first annual reflects a growing global demand for fresh thinking, with individuals and groups uniting to call for an economy that puts people and the planet first.
And a is emerging from my —one that breaks away from the outdated approach of prioritizing growth first and trying to redistribute wealth later through taxes and transfers.
This alternative strategy for ending global poverty is being built by a growing alliance of UN agencies, governments, civil society organizations, academics, trade unions, and others. Now, this approach is being turned into a , which I’ll present to the UN later this year.
The aim of the isn’t abstract theory—it’s practical change: a set of concrete policy options for governments in both the Global North and South that shift economies away from profit maximization and toward fulfilling human rights.
This shift means rewarding work based on its social and ecological value—raising wages for essential workers while limiting pay in destructive industries like fossil fuels or tobacco. We can also use job-guarantee programs where the government promises a job to anyone willing and able to work. Our approach should include debt cancellation and restructuring too, because it’s wrong that live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health or education.
The policies in our roadmap will also guide governments toward deeper structural change: taking back control of economic decisions, bringing democratic oversight to the financial system through taxes on extreme wealth and investment in care and public services; restoring and protecting the commons; supporting just transitions to renewable energy and sustainable food systems; and holding corporations accountable for environmental destruction, labor abuses, and human rights violations.
These are bold—but achievable—steps that could shape the next generation of anti-poverty efforts, including the global development goals that will replace the in 2030. Unfortunately, these practical policies will stay out of reach as long as we believe economic growth equals human progress.
After nearly a century of being told the most important metric in our lives is how fast the economy grows, this may sound radical. But it’s far less reckless than defending an economic system written by and for billionaires and multinational corporations—and then acting surprised when it fails everyone else.
