Last year, the international community gathered in Doha for the Second World Summit for Social Development, marking 30 years since the landmark Copenhagen Declaration. This milestone provided a pivotal moment to reflect on our progress and, more importantly, to redefine our approach to one of humanity's most persistent challenges: poverty.  

The old paradigms, while foundational, are no longer sufficient. The conversation must shift from simply managing poverty to building resilient and irreversible pathways to prosperity for all. 

The UNDP report launched in Doha, "Poverty-to-Prosperity Transitions", offers a powerful framework for this shift. It argues that true progress is not measured by the number of people who momentarily escape poverty, but by our ability to ensure they can withstand life's inevitable shocks without falling back into poverty. 

The Limits of Growth and the Illusion of the Poverty Line 

For decades, the development community has understood that economic growth is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for poverty reduction. We have learned the hard way that superficial growth can be fragile, and economic downturns leave deep and lasting scars on labour markets and communities. 

Furthermore, our very definition of success is due for an upgrade. The global extreme poverty line was recently updated to $3.00 a day. While crossing this threshold is a significant achievement, it is not a guarantee of a stable life. As the report highlights, a household that has escaped $3-a-day poverty may still be one illness, one climate event, or one job loss away from falling back. This cycle of "exit-and-return" traps families in a state of perpetual vulnerability. 

To build a more inclusive future, we must move beyond simply targeting the poorest and instead focus on building a robust ecosystem of jobs, services, and social protection that can sustain upward mobility for everyone. 

Introducing the "Prosperity Floor": A New Benchmark for a Dignified Life 

The report introduces a transformative concept: the "prosperity floor." This is not another global poverty line, but a nationally defined benchmark that goes beyond basic subsistence. It represents the income level required for a secure and dignified life, where families can afford housing, food, and essential services, and can cope with shocks without risking destitution. 

Adopting national prosperity floors gives governments a powerful tool to measure what truly matters: turning short-term recovery into lasting resilience. In practice, each country would set its own floor based on its median income and cost-of-living, operationalizing it through integrated social protection and labour market policies that prevent households from falling below it. 

The Twin Pillars of a Resilient Society 

Achieving this vision requires a dual focus on the most vulnerable and the squeezed "vulnerable middle." 

1. Adaptive Social Protection for the Vulnerable: To break the "exit-and-return" cycle, we must build Adaptive Social Protection systems. These systems are not just about providing cash transfers in a crisis. They are a form of permanent economic infrastructure that integrates social protection with disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. They anticipate shocks—like a drought or health crisis—and trigger support automatically, helping families absorb the impact before it turns into a catastrophe. 
2. Cushioning the Middle with Dynamic Labour Markets: The middle of the income distribution faces its own pressures from automation, decarbonization, and economic shifts. Here, the solution lies in fostering job-intensive growth by investing in labour-absorbing sectors like the care economy, sustainable agriculture, and green infrastructure. This must be paired with adaptive labour protection—policies like reskilling programs, digital skills upgrading, and unemployment insurance—that turn disruption into opportunity and ensure the benefits of growth are shared widely. It also links the importance of securing ‘decent’ jobs, rather than any job.   

From UNDP’s perspective, the objective is not simply to create more jobs, but to expand access to decent work: productive employment that offers fair incomes, adequate protection, and opportunities for people to build secure livelihoods. This requires aligning investment with employment outcomes, ensuring that workers can adapt as economies transform, and enabling women and young people in particular to access emerging opportunities. Ultimately, decent jobs are central to sustainable pathways out of poverty, helping households build resilience and ensuring that economic growth translates into lasting prosperity.