Freedom and Prosperity Center

LIVE NOW | Trade over aid: Prosperity for the US and the developing world x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

📢 READ | Are liberal democracies better equipped to promote social and economic equality? Find out what the data says by reading Yi Zhou's full piece in our Voices of the Future series ⬇️ t.ly/cqyRf

📢 READ | How can information and communication technologies economically empower women in Senegal and across Sub-Saharan Africa? Read the full piece by Aminata Niang in our Voices of the Future paper series ⬇️ t.ly/Q_qCu

📢 NEW PAPER SERIES | We are excited to launch our Voices of the Future paper series, highlighting research on key global trends in freedom and prosperity from the next generation of policy leaders. Explore the project and the first three papers⬇️ t.ly/oBVoX

Earlier this month, the @ACFPCenter hosted the Global Prosperity Forum, bringing together policymakers and industry leaders to explore actionable solutions for global development. Watch the key highlights ⤵️

🇭🇺 📽️ WATCH | On April 12, Hungarians voted to oust Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power. Will Mortenson uses the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes to look at how Peter Magyar's new government can reverse democratic decline. Explore the #FPIndexes data ➡️ t.ly/hLffV

📢 "Everybody can see that global instability is really expensive." Click the link to hear more from UK Minister of State Rt. Honorable Baroness @JennyChapman in conversation with our Senior Director James Mazzarella, closing out the @AtlanticCouncil's IMF/World Bank Week programming — @ACGeoEcon — with a compelling case for why development investment is, above all, a strategic necessity. ➡️ t.ly/VplkA

🌍 📽️ WATCH | @WorldBankGroup is launching a new indicator to measure the impact of its projects on job quality, as WBG Global Director for Fiscal Policy and Growth Manuela Francisco explains in an interview with the Atlantic Council's Will Mortenson.

Sri Lanka ranks 92/164 on the #FreedomIndex and 105/164 on the #ProsperityIndex—underscoring the stakes of reform today. Read the chapter➡️t.ly/FkBqW 2026 Atlas➡️t.ly/73ds0

Crisis exposed Sri Lanka’s weaknesses—but it also created an opportunity. The challenge now is clear: move beyond short-term fixes and build institutions that can deliver stability, resilience, and inclusive growth over the long run, writes Nishan de Mel from Verité Research in the Sri Lanka chapter of our 2026 Atlas of Freedom and Prosperity. Read the chapter➡️t.ly/FkBqW 2026 Atlas➡️t.ly/73ds0

.@FDDAction’s @ConnorPfeiffer on non-kinetic ways to counter cartels: “Going after their ability to move money effectively really raises the cost of doing business,” he tells @patrickwquirk at the @ACFPCenter Global Prosperity Forum.

“Development cooperation fills in a gap that countries cannot finance themselves, and that’s why the type of financing that a country gets depends on its level of development,” says @RaniaAlMashat at the @ACFPCenter Global Prosperity Forum.

“There’s a lot of conversations around development finance,” says @BrookingsInst’s @SongweVera at the @ACFPCenter Global Prosperity Forum. “But unfortunately, development finance today is not financing development – it’s financing debt,” she explains.

“The US has to recognize that we have a competitor in China,” says @ACGlobalChina’s Melanie Hart at the Global Prosperity Forum. “And if we want to be the partner of choice in Latin America, we can’t be flip-flopping policy back and forth,” she adds.

In Africa, there hasn’t been a damaging effect of people’s views of China vis-à-vis support for democracy, says @afrobarometer’s @joeasunka at the Global Prosperity Forum. But the fear is that corruption, if left unchecked, will reduce people’s commitment to democracy, he adds.

Across 38 African countries we surveyed between 2024 and 2025, China is the country with the most positive influence on the continent, says @afrobarometer’s @joeasunka at the Global Prosperity Forum. The US comes in at the 4th position, he tells @ACGeoEcon’s @jedmark888.

We have to recognize that in some cases, what China is building overseas are projects that are needed, and we weren’t going to build them, explains @ACGlobalChina’s Melanie Hart. But there are problems that are consistent across a lot of China’s development portfolio, she adds.

What we see today is that many developing countries borrow money from China and face an indebtedness problem, says @hofunghung at the Global Prosperity Forum. “It is not so much different from the loan performance problem in the domestic economy of China,” he explains.

My hope is that in 5 years, countries dominated by “necessity entrepreneurs” will have entrepreneurs who are entrepreneurs because they want to be entrepreneurs, says @templeton_fdn’s Greg Wolcott at the @ACFPCenter Global Prosperity Forum.

I don’t think that declaring victory right now in Venezuela, and walking away, would be prudent, says @A1Policy’s @melissafordm at the Global Prosperity Forum. “We need to make sure that all of the work that was put into the liberation of Venezuela is not in vain,” she adds.