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Title: Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business by Graham Hancock ISBN: 0-87113-469-1 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: All your suspicions will be confirmed
Comment: This book is getting a little dated now, but remains a classic critique of the international aid business. Using colourful anecdotes and solid stats, Graham Hancock convincingly demonstrates how the IMF, World Bank and other international aid/development agencies effectively worsen Third World poverty. What they do is transfer wealth from the poor to the rich in donor and recipient countries alike. In the 1st world, taxes of mainly not-particularly-rich people finance these international organizations, whose administrators often lead lives of incredible luxury. In the 3rd world, money from the organizations helps to sustain corrupt regimes and swell the bank accounts of their leaders, while in many cases the money eventually has to be repaid with interest by taxes which again tend to come mainly from the poor, thereby creating an extra burden for the people it was supposed in theory to help. Meanwhile the projects financed by the money are often wholly irrelevant to the needs of the recipient country, e.g. expressways in countries where only a rich minority own cars, and often the infrastructure is built by companies from the donor country (tied aid) and proceeds to fall to pieces long before the debt incurred has been paid off. This book caused a fair bit of controversy when first published, but was soon forgotten. It's been business as usual for the IMF etc ever since. Meanwhile Graham Hancock got so depressed with uncovering corruption in big aid agencies that he abandoned the field entirely and switched to writing all those speculative books about lost cities of the gods etc. -- yep, it's the very same Graham Hancock in case you're wondering.
Rating: 5
Summary: Incisive, well researched-a daring expose of aid in the 80s.
Comment: Hancock's aim is to encourage the reader to question the real motivations behind aid to "developing" countries. When we give, who are we really benefitting the most. Through careful and well referenced accounts of some truly amazing failures of the aid industry (and after reading this book you will gain an appreciation of the awesome size of this global conglomerate) Hancock takes us to a point where we are forced to question the very nature of charity and aid and consider its disempowering effect upon its recipients. His main offensive is against the UN and its subsidiary aid organizations who'se facility for spending money on self perpetuation seems less than matched by their ability to do any real good. The World Bank does not escape his attentions and Hancock spares us little in his account of their annual get together which bears more than a passing resemblance to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. If you want to know how, during the famine of the late 80's, Somalia was given huge supplies of slimming products and frostbite medicine, then read Lords of Poverty.
Rating: 2
Summary: One part fact, one part rant
Comment: The first half of this short book is a relatively informative overview of the responsibilities and functions of major aid and development agencies, although the statistics are now well out of date. That said, little of any of this is primary research and the author relies fairly selectively on sensationalistic quotes and facts that tell the part of the story he wants to tell.
The second half of the book, however, is little more than a rant during which the author mocks and insults aid and development workers for about 100 pages. The vitriolic quality of writing makes one wonder if an aid worker dumped him at some point. You could skip this whole part of the book and be better off for it.
Maybe I take it personally since I'm an aid worker, but I can tell you with authority that Mr. Hancock really doesn't have any idea what he's writing about - he mischaracterizes the lives and personalities of most aid workers and oversimplifies the challenges and complexity of the work. He's angry and bitter about something and I don't think it's corruption or incompetence.
And just for the record: Reviewer Viola P. Reyna doesn't have command of the facts either. Most foreign aid workers are required to pay taxes in their home countries while living abroad. Americans living abroad for more than 330 days a year, whether they are aid workers or oil drillers or whatever, are not required to pay taxes unless they make over $80,000. Everyone is still, however, required to report their incomes and file their tax returns. So contrary to what Viola says, the US Government knows exactly what everyone is making.
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Title: Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity by Michael Maren ISBN: 0743227867 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.50 |
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Title: Famine Crimes: Politics & the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (African Issues) by Alex de Waal ISBN: 0253211581 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.73 |
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Title: Africa in Chaos by George B. N. Ayittey, George B.N. Ayittey ISBN: 0312217870 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis by David Rieff ISBN: 074325211X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Condemned to Repeat?: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action by Fiona Terry ISBN: 080148796X Publisher: Cornell University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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