2026-03-27 · percent of GDP
Least developed countries spend less on military GDP share
Poverty and debt constrain defense budgets.
Poverty and debt set the ceiling on defense. Least developed countries average military spending of just 1% of GDP — a constraint of scarcity, not of choice. This grid maps military spending as a share of GDP, weighted by population, to show where the world's defense burden actually falls.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of GDP (0.1% of military spending (population-weighted)) · 1,000 cells
Context
Population-weighted, Asia & Pacific account for 51.5% of the global military-spending total, Africa 27.7%, and the Americas 19.8% — while least developed countries average a defense burden of just 1% of GDP.
The low average says more about fiscal room than about threat or preference: where poverty is widespread and debt service looms, governments have little capacity to fund large defense budgets.
The 2026 edition draws on the World Bank's World Development Indicators series for military expenditure (% of GDP), built on the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, with annual figures spanning 1960 to 2024.
Military expenditure as percent of GDP (World Bank WDI).
Share and export
Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-03-27-pol-wb-mil-spend-ldc