Article

What Does It Mean to Prosper? Three Lessons from Listening to Frontline Communities

2026-10-05 · By Meri Ghorkhmazyan, Prosper Global Senior Director of Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Ryan Sheely, Prosper Global Senior Director of Evidence Use

Meri Ghorkhmazyan and Ryan Sheely of Prosper Global share three lessons from listening to more than 1,100 people across six countries about what it means to prosper. Their findings show that prosperity is collective, depends on the ability to plan ahead, and grows from community assets, agency and opportunity—not income alone.

When organisations talk about prosperity, the conversation often centers on income, employment, assets, or economic growth. These measures matter, but they do not tell the whole story.

Through Prosper Global’s Voices of Prosperity initiative, we asked more than 1,100 people across Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Syria, and Ukraine a simple question: What does it mean to prosper?

We also asked what stands in the way of a good life. Three connected barriers emerged: conflict and insecurity, climate change and economic hardship. People described their everyday consequences: limited access to fields, markets and schools; hunger and declining harvests; and a lack of opportunity, particularly for young people.

One barrier can quickly deepen another: a failed harvest becomes debt; debt pulls a child from school; limited opportunity increases the risks of exploitation or recruitment by armed groups.

Yet participants did not define themselves only through these constraints. When they imagined prosperity, they spoke about community, agency, meaningful opportunity, and the ability to look toward the future with confidence. Prosperity looked like a child being able to play safely outside or a girl being able to imagine becoming a nurse. These aspirations make peace and economic opportunity tangible, not distant ideals, but foundations for the lives people are already working to build.

For businesses and development practitioners seeking to create lasting social impact, these insights offer an important reminder: prosperity is not just about what people have. It’s about the ability to shape what comes next.

Lesson 1: Prosperity Is Collective

One of the most consistent findings was that people rarely imagined prosperity for themselves alone. In more than 80% of conversations, participants described it as something shared by the community.

In Cartagena, Colombia, one woman put it simply: “It is no use to prosper if others are left behind.”

This challenges the individual assumptions that often underpin economic metrics and program design. It also reinforces something many businesses recognise: healthy communities are essential to healthy economies. Whether strengthening supply chains, investing in local workforces, or supporting resilience, companies create greater value when prosperity is treated as a shared outcome.

Lesson 2: Planning Matters as Much as Earning

Prosperity also meant being able to imagine and prepare for the future. What stood out was the time horizon. Respondents did not describe a distant ideal; they imagined something achievable within their lifetimes, visible in the near future and possible for their children. Prosperity was close enough to plan for.

The milestones were tangible: sending children to school, cultivating land safely, finding meaningful work, improving a home or preparing for the next growing season. Prosperity was rarely defined by abundance. It was defined by enough certainty to take the next step.

Supporting people through a shock is essential, but resilience also depends on whether they can make decisions, take responsible risks and invest in opportunities. When instability removes the ability to plan, income gains alone may not create lasting progress.

Lesson 3: Communities Already Hold Critical Assets

When people described how they navigate hardship, they often began with resources already present in their communities: local knowledge, savings groups, social networks, shared labor and mutual aid.

In Indonesia, participants referenced gotong royong, a tradition of collective effort. One participant said, “We have knowledge…it’s what’s allowed us to survive until today, and it’s what will let us survive in the future because we can put that knowledge to use.” Similar strengths appeared elsewhere, from families hosting displaced neighbors in Ukraine to farmer associations sharing labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The lesson for businesses and donors is practical: lasting solutions rarely begin from scratch. They grow by strengthening assets, relationships, and systems that already exist.

Helping Communities Move Forward: From Assistance to Partnership

Across all six countries, people were already working toward the futures they described. They brought knowledge, determination, relationships, and ideas. What they often lacked was the ability to overcome larger barriers alone: safety, stable markets, finance, technology, infrastructure and access to opportunity.

This is where businesses, donors, and development organisations can add real value. Their role is not to arrive with a predetermined definition of success. It is to understand what communities are trying to build and bring resources behind their priorities—connecting local capabilities with financing, markets, evidence, technology, and partnerships.

That means designing with communities rather than for them, treating local knowledge as an asset and measuring success by whether people gain greater choice and influence over what comes next.

The people we spoke with did not offer a universal formula for prosperity. They offered a clear direction: start with what communities already have, address the barriers they cannot remove alone and help create the conditions in which the progress they can see becomes possible.