The gross domestic product (GDP) of a country can be defined as the value of the total final output of all goods and services produced in a single year within a country's boundaries. The growth is expressed as a percent.
Of the 184 countries around the world whose GDPs are tracked by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the 20 countries with the worst average growth in GDP over the period 2002-2012 have had a troubled decade and took a particularly hard hit in the global downturn that started in earnest in 2007.
Joining sub-Saharan Africa and several developing island nations of the Western Hemisphere at the bottom of the list are the major, advanced economies of Portugal and Italy (second and third from last), Denmark, Germany, France and Greece (fifth, ninth, tenth and eleventh from last, respectively). Zimbabwe, at the bottom of the list, has a history of economic problems, including the draining of hundreds of millions of dollars from the economy during its involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Until early 2009 the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe routinely printed money to fund the budget deficit. In 2009 some reforms were put in place that turned negative growth into positive territory for the first time in a decade, but 2011 figures and projections for 2012 indicate a slowing of this growth in comparison to 2010. Portugal's economy, which depends heavily on tourism and traditional manufacturing industries, suffered under the pressure of global competition and crises, with growth averaging less than 1% during the 2002-2012 period. In Italy, third from the bottom, expanding debt and market pressure increased the burden on the country's traditionally-sluggish growth, which in part was responsible for bringing down the government of prime minister Berlusconi in 2011—after almost two decades in power. Data from the International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2011 (2011 estimates, 2012 forecasts); except Iraq 2000-2004 and Zimbabwe 2000-2005 from the World Bank, World Bank national accounts data and OECD National Accounts data files. Click on the column heading to sort the table. | 
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