Image:UNCTAD Acting Secretary-General Pedro Manuel Moreno

Pedro Manuel Moreno, Deputy Secretary-General and Acting Secretary-General of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated that Gross domestic product, or GDP, is not enough if people are better off in an economy.

“GDP measures the value of goods and services produced in an economy. It has long been treated as the world’s scoreboard for progress. But a growing economy can still leave people poorer in security, trust, opportunity and hope,” Moreno said in a report on the unctad website.

The report argues that governments need a broader way to judge whether development is working. It does not call for replacing GDP. It calls for complementing it with a practical dashboard that captures what GDP misses: well-being, equity, sustainability and resilience.

Growth is not the whole story

Between 1980 and 2025, global economic activity contracted only twice: During the 2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. By GDP’s measure, the world has rarely been richer.

Yet trust in institutions has eroded, inequality has widened in many places and environmental pressures have intensified.

In some wealthy countries, young people report high levels of anxiety and isolation. The gap between economic output and lived experience is becoming harder to ignore.

“What we measure shapes what we value. That is the question this work now places squarely on the international agenda, ”said Moreno.

A dashboard for the real economy

The report proposes 31 indicators built around four areas: Peace, human rights and respect for the planet; current well-being; equity and inclusion; and sustainability and resilience.

The dashboard would track material conditions, health, education, social cohesion, institutional quality, environmental conditions, poverty, inequality and the assets societies pass to future generations – including produced, human, social, institutional and natural capital.

It is designed to be country-owned, so governments can adapt it to national priorities and capacities.

Close to half of the indicators are drawn from the Sustainable Development Goals, meaning many countries already have data systems in place.

Why it matters now

Unlike earlier Beyond GDP efforts, this report comes with a political track.

It was produced in response to a direct request from Member States under the Pact for the Future and will now move into an intergovernmental process at the General Assembly, led by Spain and Guyana.It also recognizes that progress does not stop at borders.

One country’s well-being can be shaped by decisions made elsewhere — through emissions, trade, finance, technology and supply chains.

UNCTAD, together with the UN Development Programme and partners across the UN system, will support countries that choose to begin testing the framework.

“GDP tells us how fast an economy is growing. It does not tell us where we are headed, what we pass on the way, or what we leave behind for the next generation,” Mr Moreno said.

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest industrialist, has stated that he is eyeing Kenya as the site of a huge $17 billion 650,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery he plans to build in east Africa, after questions over a previous push to build the facility in Tanzania.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan last week complained angrily to her Kenyan counterpart William Ruto that she had not been consulted over the earlier plan to build it on her country’s coastline, which was announced in her absence last month at an infrastructure summit.

“I’m leaning more towards Mombasa because Mombasa has a much larger, deeper port,” he told Financial Times in an interview.

He compared Kenya’s port to Tanga, the proposed Tanzanian site for the refinery to process oil from Uganda and the open market.

Dangote estimated it would cost $15 billion to $17 billion to build.“Kenyans consume more.

It’s a bigger economy,” he said, adding that crude oil for the refinery could be transported by ship and need not be located near a pipeline that will carry oil nearly 1,500 kilometres from Ugandan oilfields to the Tanzanian coast at Tanga.“The ball is in the hands of President Ruto,” he said.

“Whatever President Ruto says is what I’ll do,” the Nigerian billionaire added. For the east African refinery to get off the ground, Dangote said, he would need Ruto to offer land, some east African finance and, most important, protection from what he called dumping of cheap fuel from the likes of Russia or India.

“There is no refinery in the world that can survive without that protection,” he said. “If we have an agreement, we can start this year,” he explained. He told the FT he could still build the refinery in Tanzania “if they are able to sort themselves out”.

As households across the globe count the costs of the US-Israel war in Iran, some companies have been counting bumper profits instead.

The uncertainty sparked by the conflict, and Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is driving up the cost of living and hitting the budgets of firms, families and governments.

But while some have been pushed to the brink, others, whose core businesses are more profitable in a war or who benefit from volatile energy prices, have seen record earnings.

Here are some of the sectors and companies making billions while the Middle East conflict continues.

1. Oil and gas

The biggest economic impact of the war so far has been a surge in energy prices. Around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, but those shipments effectively ground to a halt at the end of February.

The result has been a rollercoaster of price movements on energy markets, with some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies benefiting.

The main beneficiaries have been European oil giants, who have trading arms so have been able to gain from sharp price movements boosting profits.

BP’s profits more than doubled to $3.2bn (£2.4bn) for the first three months of the year, after what it called an “exceptional” performance in its trading division.

Shell also beat analysts’ expectations when it reported a rise in first-quarter profits to $6.92bn.

Another international giant, TotalEnergies, saw its profits jump by almost a third, to $5.4bn in the first quarter of 2026, driven by volatility in oil and energy markets.

US giants ExxonMobil and Chevron saw their earnings fall compared with the same period last year, due to supply disruption from the Middle East, but both beat analysts’ forecasts and expect their profits to grow further as the year goes on, with the price of oil still significantly higher than when the war broke out.

2. Big banks

Some of the biggest banks have also seen their profits boosted during the war in Iran.

JP Morgan’s trading arm made a record $11.6bn of revenue in the first three months of 2026, helping the bank overall to its second biggest ever quarterly profit.

Across the rest of the “Big Six” banks – which includes Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, as well as JP Morgan – profits all rose substantially in the first quarter of the year.

Overall, the banks reported $47.7bn in profits for the first three months of 2026.

“Heavy trading volumes have benefited investment banks, in particular Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs,” Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said.

The major Wall Street lenders have been boosted by a surge in demand for trading, with investors rushing to drop riskier stocks and bonds and pile their cash into assets that are seen as safer. Trading volumes have also been lifted by investors seeking to capitalise on the volatility in financial markets.

3. Defence

One of the most immediate beneficiaries in any conflict is the defence sector, according to Emily Sawicz, senior analyst at RSM UK.

“The conflict has reinforced gaps in air defence capability, accelerating investment in missile defence, counter drone systems and military hardware across Europe and the US,” she told the BBC.

As well as highlighting the importance of defence firms, the war creates a need for governments to replenish weapons stocks, boosting demand.

BAE Systems, which makes products including F35 fighter jet components, said in a trading update on Thursday it expects strong growth in sales and profits this year.

It cited growing “security threats” around the world pushing up government defence spending, which has in turn created a “supportive backdrop” for the company.

4. Renewables

The conflict has also highlighted the need to diversify away from reliance on fossil fuels, Streeter said.

This has “supercharged interest in the renewable sector” even in the US, she said, where the Trump administration has popularised the “drill, baby, drill” slogan encouraging greater fossil fuel usage.

Streeter said the war has led to renewable investment being seen as increasingly important to stability and resilience to shocks.One firm that has been boosted is Florida-based NextEra Energy, which has seen shares surge by 17% so far this year as investors pile in on its mission.

Danish wind power giants Vestas and Orsted have also reported surging profits, highlighting how the fallout from the Iran war is also boosting renewable energy firms.

In the UK, Octopus Energy recently told the BBC the war had caused a “huge jolt” in solar panel and heat pump sales, with solar panel sales rising by 50% since the end of February.

The surge in petrol prices has also boosted demand for electric vehicles, with Chinese manufacturers in particular making the most of the opportunity.