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Aid and other Dirty Business - Giles BoltonThis is a thorough and somewhat depressing analysis of aid to Africa, though the book casts a much wider net than that as you cannot simply look at aid with out looking at far wider issues of trade subsidies and globalisation in general.Giles Bolton is an ex aid worker and hence knows the system first hand, he makes a pretty good job of presenting facts and hence does not come across as having such a big axe to grind that he is distorting the truth. There are a lot of core truths about for example US cotton subsidies, which despite promises still seem to be an ongoing issue. http://www.globalissues.org/news/2009/07/23/2275 All too frequently the economic potential of African Countries is crippled by unfair trade regimes. Whilst the concept of so called "free trade" would not actually be a great deal for developing Countries, the current system is often even worse 
The main part of the book does concentrate of the failings of the AID system, with many damning statistics like the fact that close to 50% of US aid to Africa goes on their own American staff 
You might be worried that this would be a pretty unreadable book, but the author draws on his over personal experiences and those of people living in poverty in Africa to bring things to life, a life that is of course pretty nasty, but nonetheless very engaging. Well worth the read, it may open your eyes, or it may just give you some quite solid facts to back your existing opinions. |