Page:Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Unclassified 2016.pdf/16

 governance and border security in fragile regions, and destabilizes communities whose economic well-being depends on wildlife for biodiversity and ecotourism. Increased demand for ivory and rhino horn in East Asia has triggered unprecedented increases in poaching in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Human trafficking exploits and abused individuals and challenges international security. Human traffickers leverage corrupt officials, porous borders, and lax enforcement to orchestrate their illicit trade. This exploitation of human lives for profit continues to occur in every country in the world—undermining the rule of law and corroding legitimate institutions of government and commerce. Trafficking in persons has become a lucrative source of revenue for transnational organized crime groups and terrorist organizations and is estimated to produce tens of billions of dollars annually. For example, terrorist or armed groups—such as ISIL, the Lord's Resistance Army, and Boko Haram—engage in kidnapping for the purpose of sexual slavery, sexual exploitation, and forced labor. These activities might also contribute to the funding and sustainment of such groups.

We assess that the ongoing global migration crises—a post-WWII record 60 million refugees and internally displaced persons—will fuel an increase in the global volume of human trafficking victims as men, women, and children undertake risky migration ventures and fall prey to sex trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage and other trafficking crimes. This continuing rise in global displacement and dangerous migration, both forced and opportunistic movements within countries and across national borders, will probably allow criminal groups and terrorist organizations to exploit vulnerable populations.

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ECONOMICS AND NATURAL RESOURCES
}} Global economic growth will probably remain subdued, in part because of the deceleration of China’s economy. During 2015, preliminary figures indicate that worldwide GDP growth slipped to 3.1 percent, down from 3.4 percent the previous year, although advanced economies as a group enjoyed their strongest GDP growth since 2010 at nearly 2 percent. However, developing economies, which were already dealing with broad and sharp commodity-price declines that began in 2014, saw the first net capital outflows to developed countries since the late 1980s.

GDP growth for these economies was 4 percent in 2015, the lowest since 2009. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting a slight growth upturn in 2016 but downgraded its forecast in January for both developed and developing economies. Adverse shocks such as financial instability in emerging markets, a steeper-than-expected slowdown in China’s growth, or renewed uncertainty about Greece’s economic situation, might prevent the predicted gradual increase in global growth.

Macroeconomic Stability
Continued solid performance by the United States and the resumption of growth for many European states, even as the region continues to wrestle with the Greek debt crisis, will probably help boost growth rates for developed economies. However, increasing signs of a sustained deceleration of Chinese economic growth—particularly in sectors that are the most raw-material intensive—contributed to a continued decline in energy and commodity prices worldwide in 2015. Emerging markets and developing countries’ difficulties were compounded by the declines in foreign investment inflows and increases in