Prosperity Initiative looks to support new business activities which create opportunities for the poor. Specifically, Prosperity Initiative looks targets means to help create new waged jobs and new income for those who live below the internationally recognised Millenium Development Goal poverty lines of $1.25 (poor) and $2 (near poor) per day.

Prosperity Initiative's work targets people who are formally identified as poor in accordance with Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG1) measures. Based on MDG indicators, PI’s targets three specific income groups:

• Poor - those who live below the extreme poverty line of $1.25ppp/person/day.
• Near poor - that group which are vulnerable to falling below the extreme poverty line and live on incomes just above it (ie between $1.25ppp/day and $2ppp/day).
• Total beneficiaries - PI’s projects are in poor communities and income and jobs to those above the $2/day line remain important achievements in developing these poor communities

Although poverty are widely discussed, their definition varies. In real terms, the $1.25ppp/day and $2ppp/day concept actually means much less.The international lines are based on purchasing power parity (ppp) concepts, technically referenced to the purchasing power of $1.25 and $2 in the USA in 2005. In practical terms, since more can be purchased with less in poor countries, in 2009 $1.25ppp and $2ppp was approximately $0.60 and $0.95 in real terms in Viet Nam, and a similar level in Lao PDR and Cambodia where PI also works.  Finally and importantly, countries also have their own poverty lines which differ from these international lines, where poor country lines are often much lower than these to reflect national definitions of poverty. 

PI’s projects are planned to achieve and measure impact in each of these target groups, by measuring new jobs and income for the poor, near poor and total beneficiaries:

• Producer Sales Based Income;
• Total number (FTE) workers’ waged Jobs;
• % Workers waged jobs to women;
• Total Income - the sum of all household income received from both sales and wages.