"The meek shall inherit the earth" — that seems to be the latest message from the United Nations Development Program.
Their 2013 Human Development Report chronicles the recent, rapid expansion of the middle class in the developing world. It also predicts that over the next two decades growth in the so-called "Global South" will dramatically shift economic and political power away from Europe and North America.
The report projects that by 2020 the combined gross domestic products of Brazil, China and India will exceed the entire output of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain and the U.S. put together.
"Much of this expansion is being driven by new trade and technology partnerships within the South itself," according to the report.
And this is translating into more than just financial gains in the developing world. According to UNDP, every country surveyed — and just about every nation on earth was sampled — improved the health, education and income of its citizens over the last decade.
Bill Orme, a spokesman for UNDP, says the report finds that economic growth and human growth are inextricably linked. He says government investment in key social sectors is crucial in moving nations forward.
"Even if your only goal is to boost your economic output, what you need to do is invest in your people," ," Orme says. "You need to invest in education ... health ... governance structures that allow people to affect their lives on the community, local and national level. And if you do all those things right, economic progress will follow."
The other key factor for nations trying to get ahead in the 21st century is globalization.
"This report shows that engagement with the world economy is good for you," Orme says. "That is to say that countries that have the most interaction with global trade have better standards of living for their people."
Standards of living are improving not just in the big developing nations — Brazil, China, India for example — but also in smaller countries such as Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Mauritius, Tunisia and Rwanda.
The report projects that over the next two decades the size of the middle class will increase modestly in North America and it will actually go down in Europe. But it will boom in Asia from 525 million to 3.2 billion people.