Nicaragua

Nicaragua: steady but modest growth, 1980–2024

Nicaragua's economy was devastated by the 1980s civil war and hyperinflation, recovered gradually on agriculture, apparel assembly, and remittances, then contracted sharply again during the 2018 political crisis. Between 1980 and 2024, Nicaragua's GDP per capita grew from $659 to $2,848 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 3.4% — steady but modest growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 2.4% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 4.0 points, reflecting relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 19.0% to 14.4% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 50.3% to 46.8% of GDP, a comparatively unusual pattern for this period. On human development, life expectancy rose from 58.0 to 75.1 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 11.1% to 30.4%, while the urban population share grew from 51.1% to 59.3%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions rose from 0.61 to 0.83 tonnes CO2e per person; income inequality (Gini index) narrowed from 57.1 to 46.2; the poverty headcount ratio fell from 47.1% to 6.6%.