The recovery, though weak, will continue. The growth rate was slightly adjusted, but the macro picture was little changed: The world Bank forecast released on Monday that the global economy will grow by 4.1 percent in 2022, down 0.2 percent from its previous forecast, and 3.2 percent in 2023, also down 0.2 percent from its previous forecast. However, the risks multiply: Omicron plus a spike in prices - with the possibility of inflation expectations unanchored - and "financial stress in the context of record levels of public debt".

The bank's main focus, however, is emerging economies. "Since they lack the fiscal space to support economic activity as needed, these risks imply an increased likelihood of a hard landing," the World Bank's latest Global Outlook report reads. The report warns that when a country has to restructure its debt, it will find it "harder to do so than in the past".

The World Bank economists stressed that with monetary and fiscal policy "in uncharted territory", the prospect of higher interest rates and inflation was "less favourable" for emerging markets. The growing concern about the future is encapsulated in two figures. First, the yield on the 10-YEAR US Treasury note has reached around 1.8%, almost four times the low of a year and a half ago, matching the level of late 2019, before the emergence and impact of novel Coronavirus, and before the explosion of public debt in developing countries. That means riskier investments in emerging markets have a new competitor. Second, the appreciation of the dollar, the world's reserve currency, is sowing uncertainty among hard currency debtors.

The report notes that the worst downturns -- and therefore the most worrying ones -- were in the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. For both regions, despite higher prices for raw materials -- they are net exporters of raw materials -- last year's rebound was not enough to fully repair the economic rift caused by COVID-19, and they will have to wait until mid-2022 to fully recover the ground lost during the health crisis. Among the big Latin American countries, Mexico is the worst off, and will miss the target even by 2023. The region's two largest economies will meet the target: Brazil, which has already returned to pre-pandemic GDP levels by 2021; Argentina, which continues to be battered by inflation and debt, is also on track to meet that target early this year, far earlier than originally expected.

In its latest review of the global economy, the World Bank offers an interesting reflection to illustrate the hit some emerging countries have taken: measured in per capita income, the recovery "is likely to leave behind regions that suffer major recessions in 2020, such as islands that rely heavily on tourism," the report said. This applies to many island nations in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. But it doesn't stop there: by the end of 2023, more than half of the economies in East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa will have lower per capita incomes than at the end of 2019, before the pandemic. In sub-Saharan Africa, that proportion rises to two-thirds.