After a year of fragile and uneven recovery, global economic growth started to decelerate on a broad front in mid-2010 a world Economic Situation and Prospects report has said.

   The report for 2011 was released on Tuesday in Addis Ababa.

  The178 page report, presented by Mr Adam Elhiraika, of Economic Department and NEPAD Division of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), said the slowdown would continue into 2011 and 2012 as weaknesses in major developed economies continue to drag on the global recovery.

It stated that the slowdown in recovery posed risks for world economic stability in the coming years.

“The unprecedented scale of the policy measures taken by governments during the early stage of the crisis no doubt helped stabilise financial markets and jump-start a recovery’’, it stated.

According to the report, the policy response weakened during 2010 and was expected to be much less supportive in the near term as widening fiscal deficits and rising public debt have undermined support for further fiscal stimuli.

“Many governments, particularly those in developed countries, are already shifting towards fiscal austerity, a trend that will adversely affect global economic growth in 2011 and 2012’’, it stated.

The report said global recovery was dragged down by the developed economies as the World Gross Product (WGP) was forecast to expand by 3.1 per cent in 2011 and 3.5 per cent in 2012.

Among the developed countries, the US has been on the mend from its longest and deepest recession since the Second World War.

“The US has been experiencing the weakest recovery pace in history because the level of GDP would return to its pre-crisis peak by 2011, while full employment recovery would take another four years.

“Growth in many European countries will also remain low, drained by drastic fiscal cuts, some may continue to be in recession, while that of Japan would also decelerate notably,’’ it noted.

The report said developing countries and economies in transition continued to drive the global recovery, but their output growth would be expected to be moderate in 2011 and 2012.

It stated that developing Asia would continue to show the strongest growth performance.

“Strong growth in major developing economies, especially China, is an important factor in the rebound in global trade and commodity prices, which is benefiting growth in Latin America, the Commonwealth of Independent States and parts of Africa.

“Yet, the economic recovery remains below potential in all three regions,’’ it explained.

It stated that formidable challenges remained for the long-run development of many low-income countries because their recovery would also be below potential.

According to the report, between 2007 and the end of 2009, at least 30 million jobs were lost as a result of the global financial crisis.

“Despite a rebound in employment in parts of the world, especially in developing countries, the global economy will still need to create at least another 22 million new jobs in order to return to the pre-crisis level of global employment.

“At the current speed of the recovery, this would take at least five years’’, it stated.

The report said recent economic crisis should provide impetus for structural economic transformation, job creation, food security, poverty reduction and adoption to climate change embedded in comprehensive natural development strategies.