Productivity growth is the foundation of lasting income growth and poverty reduction: Poverty declined in EMDEs with the fastest pace of productivity growth 1981-2015, and rose in EMDEs with the lowest pace. A broad-based slowdown in productivity growth has been underway. Productivity levels in EMDEs remain less than 20 percent of the advanced-economy average, and just 2 percent in LICs. Factors contributing to the productivity deceleration include smaller gains from sectoral reallocation, a slowdown in improvements in many drivers of productivity growth, and an increase in the frequency of adverse shocks.