The World Bank classifies economies into four groups based on gross national income per capita calculated using the Atlas method. A low-income country has a GNI per capita less than 1,045 in current US dollars for the 2022 fiscal year. Lower middle-income and upper middle-income categories fall between 1,046 and 12,695 in current US dollars respectively.
In 2015 the World Bank declared that the developing developed world categorization had become less relevant due to worldwide improvements in indices such as child mortality rates. The organization decided to phase out the use of that descriptor in its reports. Their data now includes aggregations for regions and income groups rather than the broad term developing world.
Developing countries face higher risks of balance of payments crises and economic vulnerability from agricultural instability and export concentration. In 2010 Least Developed Countries lost an average of 7% of their gross domestic product mainly due to reduced labor productivity. Rising sea levels cost 1% of GDP to the least developed countries in 2010 and up to 4% in the Pacific region.
The World Health Organization estimated in 2015 that 663 million people still lack access to safe and clean drinking water. Approximately 892 million people or 12 percent of the global population practiced open defecation instead of using toilets in 2016. Seventy-six percent of those practicing open defecation live in just seven countries including India with 348 million people.
Forced riders include Comoros The Gambia Guinea-Bissau São Tomé and Príncipe Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. These countries produce only small quantities of greenhouse gas emissions per capita but are very vulnerable to negative effects of global warming. A report by the Climate Vulnerability Monitor in 2012 estimated that climate change causes 400,000 deaths on average each year mainly due to hunger and communicable diseases in developing countries.