from poverty to prosperity
from POV-er-tee to pros-PER-ih-tee
frɒm ˈpɒvərtiː tuː prɒˈspɛrɪtiːListen
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Dictionary meaning
an idiom describing the trajectory of economic development as a journey from material deprivation to abundance, framing the development process as a story of progress with a clear destination and implying that the passage from one condition to the other is both possible and desirable for all currently poor individuals, communities, and nations; the phrase appears in political speeches, development strategy documents, and aid agency communications as a statement of purpose and a vision of what successful development looks like; critics note that the framing can obscure the structural causes of poverty, the political obstacles to change, and the fact that prosperity in one part of the global economy may depend on the maintenance of low wages and commodity prices in others; nonetheless, the idiom performs an important motivational function by insisting that the condition of poverty is not permanent or natural but can be changed through deliberate effort and investment
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