Must read for anyone interested in poverty reduction, 30 Aug 2008
In my work over the last few years, struggling with the issues of development and poverty reduction, and I read a lot of books on the issues. Recently, I read one of the best books in the form of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion.
Just as Mr. Collier says at the end of his book, discussions on poverty and development have over the last few years been dominated by two extremes: On the one extreme Mr. Jeffrey Sachs call for more aid to "end poverty", and on the other side, William Easterly's negativity that nothing really works (in the books The End of Poverty and The White Man's Burden, respectively).
Mr. Collier strikes a marvelous and necessary balance between these two. On one side, he says about Mr. Sachs:
"At present the clarion call for the left is Jeffrey Sach's book the end of poverty. Much as I agree with Sachs' passionate call to action, I think that he has overplayed the importance of aid. Aid alone will not solve the problems of the bottom billion - we need to use a wider range of policies."
Mr. Sachs is an advocate of more money will solve the problems, but as Mr. Collier puts well in the book, many of the problems related to poverty are structural, from lack of investement, infrastructure, education, conflict, to being landlocked. Some of these problems are not solved just with more money. Unfortunately, this is a tendency in development aid nowadays, perhaps as aid agencies and staff need to justify their existence, even increase it: the need of more money, much of it in the form of budgetary support, which goes directly to a poor country's budget, in ever bigger amounts. But the link to poverty reduction is awkward to say the least: as pointed out in both Easterly's and Collier's book, higher dependence on foreign aid hardly leads to poverty reduction.
How much did I see this in Mozambique: had any of the subsistence farmers I worked with ever benefitted from the Agricultural SWAp...?
Nevertheless, while one cannot argue that aid will help everything, one can not jump into the other side of "Nothing helps" like the old disillusioned Mr. Easterly does (in my personal view Mr. Easterly is the kind of person who would have let slavery continue, not because he agreed with it, but because "we cannot do anything about it"):
"At present the clarion call for the right is economist William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is right to mock the delusions of the aid lobby. But just as Sachs exaggerates the payoff to aid, Easterly exaggerates the downside and again neglects the scope for other policies. We are not as impotent and ignorant as Easterly seems to think."
As Collier amply argues for, there are many situations and examples that aid has helped and alleviated poverty. But as Mr. Collier also amply discusses and argues for, the aid money needs to be allocated in a well-planned way, and not ignoring the context: aid alone is unlikely to help.
I must admit that at first I found the book to start really slowly: Mr. Collier took time to explain his framework for analysis, ennumerating four "traps" which developing countries, or rather, the "bottom billion", the poorest of the poorest caught in a vicious circle of misery of landlockedness, resource trap, conflict and bad governance. These four traps are inter-related and Mr. Collier carefully presents his huge array of statistics to present his argument.
This part was a somewhat tedious read, but after passing this part, the book moves into more interesting areas, namely what can be done about it, the huge dilemmas and difficulties surrounding these issues.
Nevertheless, on a more critical view, the book's argument is built too much on statistics. It makes it powerful, but at the same time one can feel that the argumentation, like with all statistics, is political and absolutist: in social sciences, there are exceptions to all statistics! At the same time, some of the correlations, like for instance between post-conflict situations and democracy, seem so vague that I would never look at a specific situation with that data, but only focus on the context.
Personally, I like that he says it can be done - too often in the world people say: "there have always been poor people, and there always will be". While I don't deny this is true, I find it appalling that this should be used as an excuse: we have always had murders, rape, wars, but nobody in their right mind would say we should do nothing about it!
I like the book, because we finally have a well-written balance abut development aid, something that has been missing for a while as the issue is discussed more and more.

Hard-hitting indictment of development's failure , 01 May 2008
getAbstract finds that this concise, clearly written and hard-hitting book by Paul Collier, one of the world's leading experts on Africa, is a must-read for anyone concerned with development, economic justice, trade, immigration, terrorism and related issues. The author has scant patience with sacred cows of either the right or the left. He penetrates the fictions and fantasies that have helped drive not only unproductive but actually counterproductive policies on aid, trade, investment and more. The book is enlightening, and entertaining in the way that good satire is entertaining. It is also inspiring, since Collier goes beyond merely identifying problems: He offers credible suggestions for solutions.

Beyond the Survival of the Fattest, 30 Apr 2008
While this is a scholarly economics textbook, the author makes a deliberate and commendable effort to keep the language, structure and flow of complex ideas accessible and captivating to the general reader. Its scope and inspiration is universal but the studies are mainly centred on poor African countries caught in various traps: of conflict, dependence on natural resources, bad governance and unfavourable geography including unhelpful neighbours, harsh topography and bleak climate. Collier's basic message is upbeat: none of the traps is inescapable, in spite of the current low rate and low probability of sustained exit from a trap for the billion or so living in the no or negative growth countries.

In the first part of the book, the author draws on extensive in-depth collaborative research to make very subtle analyses of the relationship between conflict and under development. Regrettably, the end result has sometimes the ring of the medieval disputations on the sex of angels. The direction of causation is rarely straight forward even after exhaustive wading through pools of data.

The problem of human as well as financial capital flight as an obstacle to economic growth is dealt with at greater length and cogency. The new approach here involves treating the emigration of skilled and unskilled labour and expatriation of financial resources in the same way as a risk mitigation strategy for the individual. To retain both funds and skills will require elimination of the perceived investment risk profile of the country.

But how can we reduce the growth-negating resource capture by the elite, from aid, natural resources such as oil and minerals? Collier cites the impact of the Extractive Resources Transparency Initiative and the Charter on Blood Diamonds as instances of a fairly effective multilateral approach.

The author further explores the self-perpetuating monster of poor governance, underscoring the need to put in place effective mechanisms for restraint: electoral competition, checks and balances, an independent judiciary and a free press. He shows how publicising budgetary allocations and disbursements for specific projects in the media allows for and encourages follow up by beneficiaries and vigilance by civil society groups to minimise or eliminate leakages. With a wry sense of humour, he advocates the repeal of the law of the political jungle, aptly termed "the survival of the fattest", noting that where patronage politics is feasible, electoral competition encourages the bribery of opinion makers or community leaders instead of using the provision of public services as an electoral argument, leaving the corrupt as the winners.

Should military intervention be an option? Contrasting Iraq and Kosovo, Somalia and Sierra Leone, he sees it as an option that should not be discarded but rather managed with utmost care and resolve. Will freer international trade, as promoted by WTO, help the poorest countries break out of the traps? Collier has doubts and makes a case for the AGOA type of initiative which involves positive discrimination; a handicap race where the Asian front runners have their feet shackled in tariffs to facilitate the entry of products from the poorest African countries. But beyond the traditional instruments of aid and trade, the emphasis of the G8 and other actors in development needs to shift towards issues of security strategies coupled with the application of internationally sanctioned norms and standards of equity and governance.


The Bottom Billion, 06 Apr 2008
I find Paul Collier's book(The Bottom Billion) interesting to read. He easily highlights Many of the economic difficulties facing the poorest countries in the world. He then suggests multi-faced approach that can be applied to tackle some of the issues he highlighted, not only by the poor countries themselves but also by the so called "donor" countries.

Much of Paul's argument is based on data collected by international organization such as IMF and The World Bank and so on. When reading through the pages you would meet some high ranking individuals in these countries, i.e. the Finance minister, but rarely the ordinary person in the street and the challenges he/she faces. In my opinion this is the main weakness of this book. It's a top down approach. He does not talk so much about some of the side effects that export driven policies had on these countries such as planting crops for export in the best available land instead of the staple food of the country which people need to survive. Overall very good book, though I encourage Paul to get out of the big hotels and ministerial headquarters and meet ordinary people next time he visits one of these countries.


A joy to read, 02 Jan 2008
This is a thought-provoking book: the problems of the poorest countries are deeply and cogently analysed and explained, and appropriate policies proposed. It has the added virtue of being written in simple and refreshingly straight-forward language. There is much that is absolutely original here.

The one comment I have is that Collier bases some of his policy prescriptions on the assumption that the only way to develop is through export, which seems to suggest export-led growth and large projects. There is nothing about micro projects and the need to work with the poor to alleviate poverty through the provision of appropriate/intermediate technology.

I e-mailed him about this and received a rapid and courteous reply saying that he did not have space in the book to cover everything and that he agreed that exporting only makes sense as a growth strategy for some countries and that he has no fault to find with the micro approach.

He also suggested I might write this review; so I did.

PS I also thoroughly recommend the lecture on his website.

Must read for anyone interested in poverty reduction, 30 Aug 2008
In my work over the last few years, struggling with the issues of development and poverty reduction, and I read a lot of books on the issues. Recently, I read one of the best books in the form of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion.
Just as Mr. Collier says at the end of his book, discussions on poverty and development have over the last few years been dominated by two extremes: On the one extreme Mr. Jeffrey Sachs call for more aid to "end poverty", and on the other side, William Easterly's negativity that nothing really works (in the books The End of Poverty and The White Man's Burden, respectively).
Mr. Collier strikes a marvelous and necessary balance between these two. On one side, he says about Mr. Sachs:
"At present the clarion call for the left is Jeffrey Sach's book the end of poverty. Much as I agree with Sachs' passionate call to action, I think that he has overplayed the importance of aid. Aid alone will not solve the problems of the bottom billion - we need to use a wider range of policies."
Mr. Sachs is an advocate of more money will solve the problems, but as Mr. Collier puts well in the book, many of the problems related to poverty are structural, from lack of investement, infrastructure, education, conflict, to being landlocked. Some of these problems are not solved just with more money. Unfortunately, this is a tendency in development aid nowadays, perhaps as aid agencies and staff need to justify their existence, even increase it: the need of more money, much of it in the form of budgetary support, which goes directly to a poor country's budget, in ever bigger amounts. But the link to poverty reduction is awkward to say the least: as pointed out in both Easterly's and Collier's book, higher dependence on foreign aid hardly leads to poverty reduction.
How much did I see this in Mozambique: had any of the subsistence farmers I worked with ever benefitted from the Agricultural SWAp...?
Nevertheless, while one cannot argue that aid will help everything, one can not jump into the other side of "Nothing helps" like the old disillusioned Mr. Easterly does (in my personal view Mr. Easterly is the kind of person who would have let slavery continue, not because he agreed with it, but because "we cannot do anything about it"):
"At present the clarion call for the right is economist William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is right to mock the delusions of the aid lobby. But just as Sachs exaggerates the payoff to aid, Easterly exaggerates the downside and again neglects the scope for other policies. We are not as impotent and ignorant as Easterly seems to think."
As Collier amply argues for, there are many situations and examples that aid has helped and alleviated poverty. But as Mr. Collier also amply discusses and argues for, the aid money needs to be allocated in a well-planned way, and not ignoring the context: aid alone is unlikely to help.
I must admit that at first I found the book to start really slowly: Mr. Collier took time to explain his framework for analysis, ennumerating four "traps" which developing countries, or rather, the "bottom billion", the poorest of the poorest caught in a vicious circle of misery of landlockedness, resource trap, conflict and bad governance. These four traps are inter-related and Mr. Collier carefully presents his huge array of statistics to present his argument.
This part was a somewhat tedious read, but after passing this part, the book moves into more interesting areas, namely what can be done about it, the huge dilemmas and difficulties surrounding these issues.
Nevertheless, on a more critical view, the book's argument is built too much on statistics. It makes it powerful, but at the same time one can feel that the argumentation, like with all statistics, is political and absolutist: in social sciences, there are exceptions to all statistics! At the same time, some of the correlations, like for instance between post-conflict situations and democracy, seem so vague that I would never look at a specific situation with that data, but only focus on the context.
Personally, I like that he says it can be done - too often in the world people say: "there have always been poor people, and there always will be". While I don't deny this is true, I find it appalling that this should be used as an excuse: we have always had murders, rape, wars, but nobody in their right mind would say we should do nothing about it!
I like the book, because we finally have a well-written balance abut development aid, something that has been missing for a while as the issue is discussed more and more.

Hard-hitting indictment of development's failure , 01 May 2008
getAbstract finds that this concise, clearly written and hard-hitting book by Paul Collier, one of the world's leading experts on Africa, is a must-read for anyone concerned with development, economic justice, trade, immigration, terrorism and related issues. The author has scant patience with sacred cows of either the right or the left. He penetrates the fictions and fantasies that have helped drive not only unproductive but actually counterproductive policies on aid, trade, investment and more. The book is enlightening, and entertaining in the way that good satire is entertaining. It is also inspiring, since Collier goes beyond merely identifying problems: He offers credible suggestions for solutions.

Beyond the Survival of the Fattest, 30 Apr 2008
While this is a scholarly economics textbook, the author makes a deliberate and commendable effort to keep the language, structure and flow of complex ideas accessible and captivating to the general reader. Its scope and inspiration is universal but the studies are mainly centred on poor African countries caught in various traps: of conflict, dependence on natural resources, bad governance and unfavourable geography including unhelpful neighbours, harsh topography and bleak climate. Collier's basic message is upbeat: none of the traps is inescapable, in spite of the current low rate and low probability of sustained exit from a trap for the billion or so living in the no or negative growth countries.

In the first part of the book, the author draws on extensive in-depth collaborative research to make very subtle analyses of the relationship between conflict and under development. Regrettably, the end result has sometimes the ring of the medieval disputations on the sex of angels. The direction of causation is rarely straight forward even after exhaustive wading through pools of data.

The problem of human as well as financial capital flight as an obstacle to economic growth is dealt with at greater length and cogency. The new approach here involves treating the emigration of skilled and unskilled labour and expatriation of financial resources in the same way as a risk mitigation strategy for the individual. To retain both funds and skills will require elimination of the perceived investment risk profile of the country.

But how can we reduce the growth-negating resource capture by the elite, from aid, natural resources such as oil and minerals? Collier cites the impact of the Extractive Resources Transparency Initiative and the Charter on Blood Diamonds as instances of a fairly effective multilateral approach.

The author further explores the self-perpetuating monster of poor governance, underscoring the need to put in place effective mechanisms for restraint: electoral competition, checks and balances, an independent judiciary and a free press. He shows how publicising budgetary allocations and disbursements for specific projects in the media allows for and encourages follow up by beneficiaries and vigilance by civil society groups to minimise or eliminate leakages. With a wry sense of humour, he advocates the repeal of the law of the political jungle, aptly termed "the survival of the fattest", noting that where patronage politics is feasible, electoral competition encourages the bribery of opinion makers or community leaders instead of using the provision of public services as an electoral argument, leaving the corrupt as the winners.

Should military intervention be an option? Contrasting Iraq and Kosovo, Somalia and Sierra Leone, he sees it as an option that should not be discarded but rather managed with utmost care and resolve. Will freer international trade, as promoted by WTO, help the poorest countries break out of the traps? Collier has doubts and makes a case for the AGOA type of initiative which involves positive discrimination; a handicap race where the Asian front runners have their feet shackled in tariffs to facilitate the entry of products from the poorest African countries. But beyond the traditional instruments of aid and trade, the emphasis of the G8 and other actors in development needs to shift towards issues of security strategies coupled with the application of internationally sanctioned norms and standards of equity and governance.


The Bottom Billion, 06 Apr 2008
I find Paul Collier's book(The Bottom Billion) interesting to read. He easily highlights Many of the economic difficulties facing the poorest countries in the world. He then suggests multi-faced approach that can be applied to tackle some of the issues he highlighted, not only by the poor countries themselves but also by the so called "donor" countries.

Much of Paul's argument is based on data collected by international organization such as IMF and The World Bank and so on. When reading through the pages you would meet some high ranking individuals in these countries, i.e. the Finance minister, but rarely the ordinary person in the street and the challenges he/she faces. In my opinion this is the main weakness of this book. It's a top down approach. He does not talk so much about some of the side effects that export driven policies had on these countries such as planting crops for export in the best available land instead of the staple food of the country which people need to survive. Overall very good book, though I encourage Paul to get out of the big hotels and ministerial headquarters and meet ordinary people next time he visits one of these countries.


A joy to read, 02 Jan 2008
This is a thought-provoking book: the problems of the poorest countries are deeply and cogently analysed and explained, and appropriate policies proposed. It has the added virtue of being written in simple and refreshingly straight-forward language. There is much that is absolutely original here.

The one comment I have is that Collier bases some of his policy prescriptions on the assumption that the only way to develop is through export, which seems to suggest export-led growth and large projects. There is nothing about micro projects and the need to work with the poor to alleviate poverty through the provision of appropriate/intermediate technology.

I e-mailed him about this and received a rapid and courteous reply saying that he did not have space in the book to cover everything and that he agreed that exporting only makes sense as a growth strategy for some countries and that he has no fault to find with the micro approach.

He also suggested I might write this review; so I did.

PS I also thoroughly recommend the lecture on his website.



Witty and insightful account of the failure of aid in Africa, 11 May 2008
How come $2.3 trillion dollars of Western aid has been spent in the last 50 years mostly in Africa, my native continent, and yet millions of children still die of preventable diseases like dysentery, cholera and malaria? Why have the vast amounts of aid money and Western good intentions not been able to lift Africa out of back-breaking poverty? William Easterly's argument, in this fascinating book, is that Western aid has failed because of the traditional approach that it has taken to tackling Third World poverty: planning and bureaucracy.

According to Mr Easterly, Western aid in the form on the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the IMF) is the most recent reincarnation of the White Man's Burden, a phrase which was immortalized by Kipling. The basic argument of the White Man's Burden in the 19th century was that Western Europe spread Christianity, commerce and civilization to the coloured, benighted races of the world (of course for the benefit of the Africans and Asians).

Mr Easterly, a former World Bank Economist, writes that the command-and-control bureaucrats of the aid establishment, whom he dubs as Planners, cannot understand the complexities of getting aid to the desperate poor because:
- There is no accountability for service delivery, as the poor cannot do this by voting.
- Planners' thinking is dominated by grandiose, non-specific plans such as ending poverty and the Millennium Development Goals
- Planners think that they already have the answers. Hence, they tend to be patronizing and have a ready-made answer for every poor country; structural adjustment, free markets and privatization

The author then contrasts the failure of the Planners with Searchers, whom he defines as people who work at the local level seeking incremental economic change for the poor by constantly experimenting with new ideas on the ground. He provides interesting accounts of aid projects, done by Searchers; Westerners and Africans, which were modest in scope but brought significant benefits to the poor. My favourite example was from India. By making a contribution of $5,000, Western donors built a toilet block for teenage girls in a rural school. This dramatically cut the drop-out rate for the girls because, as it turns out, they (the girls) had been dropping out "in droves because of the embarrassment that they felt once they started menstruating and had no private facilities".

He brilliantly shows that Western-style market societies cannot be planned "top-down" (contrary to the goals of the Planners). Markets in the developed West are the result of complex social and political institutions/norms that have taken thousands of years to evolve. Since free market opportunities in the West and The Rest depend on "bottom-up choices" which the planners don't begin to understand, Planners are doomed to fail in creating markets in the Third World.
Though the subject of the book is a serious one, the tome is spiced with witty accounts of the histories of various Third World countries: Western support for UNITA in Angola, the Contras in Nicaragua and in Haiti. On page after page, Easterly provides grim evidence of the failure of the World Bank, the IMF and Western military intervention to bring about desired social change. More often than not, it has led to much harm as in the above-mentioned countries. The message: Economic success in the tropics cannot be planned from an office in Washington DC. Instead, as has happened in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China and India, it must be homegrown. Certainly Western aid still has a role to play but the Planners in the World Bank and IMF would do well to be more humble in their ambitions and seek to incrementally the improve lives of individuals in the poor countries.

Sometimes, Mr Easterly's analysis is quite dry. For example, he presents information showing that people in (rich) Denmark are more trustful of each other than people in (poor) The Philippines are. However, he erroneously concludes that wealth is a determinant of trust in a society. Could it be that Danes are more trustful of each other because theirs is a more ethnically homogenous and equal society than The Philippines? Could a breakdown in social institutions in The Philippines be the cause of mistrust, say more than wealth?

The distinction between Planners and Searchers struck me as being too simplistic. It is hard to believe that everyone who works for the World Bank and IMF falls neatly into the "Planner" category. Surely, the truth is more complex than the author presents it. However, since the crude distinction works well in contrasting the traditional approach to aid, I'll not fault the author for this.

Finally, the author presents some ideas for getting aid to work:

- Make aid agencies individually accountable for individual, feasible areas that help poor people improve their lives
- Give aid agencies the opportunity to experiment and search for what works
- Abandon the utopian blueprint to fix the Third World's complex problems. Instead focus on getting specific, incremental improvement in people's lives in fields such as health, sanitation and food security. Broad-brush plans for delivering market economies, `Making Poverty History" or establishing the rule of law, laudable as they are, are going to fail

In the concluding chapter, the author makes a most poignant point: "Aid won't make poverty history...only the self reliant efforts of poor people and poor societies themselves can end poverty, borrowing ideas and institutions from the West when it suits them to do so". It is a message with which I concur and one that I, as a Nigerian, have taken to heart. I recommend White Man's Burden for making such a timely point.

Excellent, 08 Feb 2008
An excellent book. Easterly sets out a balanced review of how aid has benefited/ not benefited many developing nations in an excellent thought provoking manner. Thoroughly recommended.

Intelligent critique of foreign aid policies, 18 May 2007
At the World Economic Forum in 2007, author William Easterly gave the audience some distressing news: The $2.3 trillion in aid sent to Africa since the 1950s had done nothing to increase Africa's GDP. It had been largely a waste of money. Bill Gates, who was sitting next to Easterly that day, admonished the author for focusing on narrowly economic benchmarks: "You don't eat GDP," Gates said petulantly. Easterly's riposte came a few days later in The Wall Street Journal, where he chided the world's richest college dropout for missing "the economics class that listed the components of GDP, such as food." Readers who enjoy such debates will love this acerbic, clearheaded book. Easterly, a former World Bank economist who is fervently committed to global prosperity, demolishes the myths that prop up ineffective efforts to help developing nations. He points his wrecking-ball at photo-op celebrities and utopian economists who feel that big plans and big aid budgets will eventually build big economies (the last 50 years of contrary evidence notwithstanding). Ah, you say, at least they are trying to do something good, while many others simply watch the impoverished world's agony in dismay. Instead, the author argues, only alternative, pinpointed aid tactics can succeed, but only if they use local knowledge and implementation. We recommend this to anyone interested in economic development and emerging markets, and to lovers of intelligent polemic on issues that matter.

Despite truly embarrasing title this book should be read, 09 May 2007
I bought this book fully expecting to disagree with almost everything the author said, but feeling that to have an open mind I should read it.

The title I found hugely embarrasing especially as I spend most of my time reading in public places where large proportions of the people are not white.

Easterly despite having spent a good time of his career earning money from the World Bank actually spends most of the time explaining how foreign aid policy has failed to work over the last 50 years largely due to the desire to have a 'Big Plan' and the arrogance of foreigners (from predominantly white nations) in their interventions in the rest of the world.

I actually found myself agreeing with more of this book than I thought I would and certainly most of it was easy but interesting to read. I think some of the explanations and criticisms were too clear cut but I could see that often trying to comply with a Big Plan does indeed distract from the more important task of finding ways to improve lives.

Two things about the book really annoyed me. One was the constant reference to Planners v Searchers which was much along the lines of here come the 'baddies' in the black clothes called 'Planners' and against them are the good, little people trying to bring light in their white clothes 'Searchers'.

Secondly was the use of statistics. I think if you have a good grasp of statistical analysis then you would be disappointed with the frequent lack of referencing of the data or only referencing secondary sources. If you are not statistically biased then trying to read and re-read the descriptions of the analysis - 'adjusting for reverse causality' is difficult because you are left unconvinced as to whether the conclusions presented have a strong basis.

However even saying this I felt there were many interesting points to consider in this book, generally it was written in an easy style all be it a little too frivolous at times. For anyone interested in development, aid or foreign policy this is a MUST READ book.

impressive!, 22 May 2006
finally a book on the subject worth reading....yes, it goes over some ground already covered by others...but it does offer new insight...i was skeptical reading this as an African...but in the end I found myself fully persuaded by his arguments....what an impressive book by Easterly!...this is by far the best book I have read on the subject...Easterly provides a unique blend of economic insight, personal experience and local knowledge of the issues...if it was possible, I would make every politician, activist and anyone who cares about aiding read this book BEFORE they act....its a pity that may be this book has come too late...go read it...

Must read for anyone interested in poverty reduction, 30 Aug 2008
In my work over the last few years, struggling with the issues of development and poverty reduction, and I read a lot of books on the issues. Recently, I read one of the best books in the form of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion.
Just as Mr. Collier says at the end of his book, discussions on poverty and development have over the last few years been dominated by two extremes: On the one extreme Mr. Jeffrey Sachs call for more aid to "end poverty", and on the other side, William Easterly's negativity that nothing really works (in the books The End of Poverty and The White Man's Burden, respectively).
Mr. Collier strikes a marvelous and necessary balance between these two. On one side, he says about Mr. Sachs:
"At present the clarion call for the left is Jeffrey Sach's book the end of poverty. Much as I agree with Sachs' passionate call to action, I think that he has overplayed the importance of aid. Aid alone will not solve the problems of the bottom billion - we need to use a wider range of policies."
Mr. Sachs is an advocate of more money will solve the problems, but as Mr. Collier puts well in the book, many of the problems related to poverty are structural, from lack of investement, infrastructure, education, conflict, to being landlocked. Some of these problems are not solved just with more money. Unfortunately, this is a tendency in development aid nowadays, perhaps as aid agencies and staff need to justify their existence, even increase it: the need of more money, much of it in the form of budgetary support, which goes directly to a poor country's budget, in ever bigger amounts. But the link to poverty reduction is awkward to say the least: as pointed out in both Easterly's and Collier's book, higher dependence on foreign aid hardly leads to poverty reduction.
How much did I see this in Mozambique: had any of the subsistence farmers I worked with ever benefitted from the Agricultural SWAp...?
Nevertheless, while one cannot argue that aid will help everything, one can not jump into the other side of "Nothing helps" like the old disillusioned Mr. Easterly does (in my personal view Mr. Easterly is the kind of person who would have let slavery continue, not because he agreed with it, but because "we cannot do anything about it"):
"At present the clarion call for the right is economist William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is right to mock the delusions of the aid lobby. But just as Sachs exaggerates the payoff to aid, Easterly exaggerates the downside and again neglects the scope for other policies. We are not as impotent and ignorant as Easterly seems to think."
As Collier amply argues for, there are many situations and examples that aid has helped and alleviated poverty. But as Mr. Collier also amply discusses and argues for, the aid money needs to be allocated in a well-planned way, and not ignoring the context: aid alone is unlikely to help.
I must admit that at first I found the book to start really slowly: Mr. Collier took time to explain his framework for analysis, ennumerating four "traps" which developing countries, or rather, the "bottom billion", the poorest of the poorest caught in a vicious circle of misery of landlockedness, resource trap, conflict and bad governance. These four traps are inter-related and Mr. Collier carefully presents his huge array of statistics to present his argument.
This part was a somewhat tedious read, but after passing this part, the book moves into more interesting areas, namely what can be done about it, the huge dilemmas and difficulties surrounding these issues.
Nevertheless, on a more critical view, the book's argument is built too much on statistics. It makes it powerful, but at the same time one can feel that the argumentation, like with all statistics, is political and absolutist: in social sciences, there are exceptions to all statistics! At the same time, some of the correlations, like for instance between post-conflict situations and democracy, seem so vague that I would never look at a specific situation with that data, but only focus on the context.
Personally, I like that he says it can be done - too often in the world people say: "there have always been poor people, and there always will be". While I don't deny this is true, I find it appalling that this should be used as an excuse: we have always had murders, rape, wars, but nobody in their right mind would say we should do nothing about it!
I like the book, because we finally have a well-written balance abut development aid, something that has been missing for a while as the issue is discussed more and more.

Hard-hitting indictment of development's failure , 01 May 2008
getAbstract finds that this concise, clearly written and hard-hitting book by Paul Collier, one of the world's leading experts on Africa, is a must-read for anyone concerned with development, economic justice, trade, immigration, terrorism and related issues. The author has scant patience with sacred cows of either the right or the left. He penetrates the fictions and fantasies that have helped drive not only unproductive but actually counterproductive policies on aid, trade, investment and more. The book is enlightening, and entertaining in the way that good satire is entertaining. It is also inspiring, since Collier goes beyond merely identifying problems: He offers credible suggestions for solutions.

Beyond the Survival of the Fattest, 30 Apr 2008
While this is a scholarly economics textbook, the author makes a deliberate and commendable effort to keep the language, structure and flow of complex ideas accessible and captivating to the general reader. Its scope and inspiration is universal but the studies are mainly centred on poor African countries caught in various traps: of conflict, dependence on natural resources, bad governance and unfavourable geography including unhelpful neighbours, harsh topography and bleak climate. Collier's basic message is upbeat: none of the traps is inescapable, in spite of the current low rate and low probability of sustained exit from a trap for the billion or so living in the no or negative growth countries.

In the first part of the book, the author draws on extensive in-depth collaborative research to make very subtle analyses of the relationship between conflict and under development. Regrettably, the end result has sometimes the ring of the medieval disputations on the sex of angels. The direction of causation is rarely straight forward even after exhaustive wading through pools of data.

The problem of human as well as financial capital flight as an obstacle to economic growth is dealt with at greater length and cogency. The new approach here involves treating the emigration of skilled and unskilled labour and expatriation of financial resources in the same way as a risk mitigation strategy for the individual. To retain both funds and skills will require elimination of the perceived investment risk profile of the country.

But how can we reduce the growth-negating resource capture by the elite, from aid, natural resources such as oil and minerals? Collier cites the impact of the Extractive Resources Transparency Initiative and the Charter on Blood Diamonds as instances of a fairly effective multilateral approach.

The author further explores the self-perpetuating monster of poor governance, underscoring the need to put in place effective mechanisms for restraint: electoral competition, checks and balances, an independent judiciary and a free press. He shows how publicising budgetary allocations and disbursements for specific projects in the media allows for and encourages follow up by beneficiaries and vigilance by civil society groups to minimise or eliminate leakages. With a wry sense of humour, he advocates the repeal of the law of the political jungle, aptly termed "the survival of the fattest", noting that where patronage politics is feasible, electoral competition encourages the bribery of opinion makers or community leaders instead of using the provision of public services as an electoral argument, leaving the corrupt as the winners.

Should military intervention be an option? Contrasting Iraq and Kosovo, Somalia and Sierra Leone, he sees it as an option that should not be discarded but rather managed with utmost care and resolve. Will freer international trade, as promoted by WTO, help the poorest countries break out of the traps? Collier has doubts and makes a case for the AGOA type of initiative which involves positive discrimination; a handicap race where the Asian front runners have their feet shackled in tariffs to facilitate the entry of products from the poorest African countries. But beyond the traditional instruments of aid and trade, the emphasis of the G8 and other actors in development needs to shift towards issues of security strategies coupled with the application of internationally sanctioned norms and standards of equity and governance.


The Bottom Billion, 06 Apr 2008
I find Paul Collier's book(The Bottom Billion) interesting to read. He easily highlights Many of the economic difficulties facing the poorest countries in the world. He then suggests multi-faced approach that can be applied to tackle some of the issues he highlighted, not only by the poor countries themselves but also by the so called "donor" countries.

Much of Paul's argument is based on data collected by international organization such as IMF and The World Bank and so on. When reading through the pages you would meet some high ranking individuals in these countries, i.e. the Finance minister, but rarely the ordinary person in the street and the challenges he/she faces. In my opinion this is the main weakness of this book. It's a top down approach. He does not talk so much about some of the side effects that export driven policies had on these countries such as planting crops for export in the best available land instead of the staple food of the country which people need to survive. Overall very good book, though I encourage Paul to get out of the big hotels and ministerial headquarters and meet ordinary people next time he visits one of these countries.


A joy to read, 02 Jan 2008
This is a thought-provoking book: the problems of the poorest countries are deeply and cogently analysed and explained, and appropriate policies proposed. It has the added virtue of being written in simple and refreshingly straight-forward language. There is much that is absolutely original here.

The one comment I have is that Collier bases some of his policy prescriptions on the assumption that the only way to develop is through export, which seems to suggest export-led growth and large projects. There is nothing about micro projects and the need to work with the poor to alleviate poverty through the provision of appropriate/intermediate technology.

I e-mailed him about this and received a rapid and courteous reply saying that he did not have space in the book to cover everything and that he agreed that exporting only makes sense as a growth strategy for some countries and that he has no fault to find with the micro approach.

He also suggested I might write this review; so I did.

PS I also thoroughly recommend the lecture on his website.



Witty and insightful account of the failure of aid in Africa, 11 May 2008
How come $2.3 trillion dollars of Western aid has been spent in the last 50 years mostly in Africa, my native continent, and yet millions of children still die of preventable diseases like dysentery, cholera and malaria? Why have the vast amounts of aid money and Western good intentions not been able to lift Africa out of back-breaking poverty? William Easterly's argument, in this fascinating book, is that Western aid has failed because of the traditional approach that it has taken to tackling Third World poverty: planning and bureaucracy.

According to Mr Easterly, Western aid in the form on the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the IMF) is the most recent reincarnation of the White Man's Burden, a phrase which was immortalized by Kipling. The basic argument of the White Man's Burden in the 19th century was that Western Europe spread Christianity, commerce and civilization to the coloured, benighted races of the world (of course for the benefit of the Africans and Asians).

Mr Easterly, a former World Bank Economist, writes that the command-and-control bureaucrats of the aid establishment, whom he dubs as Planners, cannot understand the complexities of getting aid to the desperate poor because:
- There is no accountability for service delivery, as the poor cannot do this by voting.
- Planners' thinking is dominated by grandiose, non-specific plans such as ending poverty and the Millennium Development Goals
- Planners think that they already have the answers. Hence, they tend to be patronizing and have a ready-made answer for every poor country; structural adjustment, free markets and privatization

The author then contrasts the failure of the Planners with Searchers, whom he defines as people who work at the local level seeking incremental economic change for the poor by constantly experimenting with new ideas on the ground. He provides interesting accounts of aid projects, done by Searchers; Westerners and Africans, which were modest in scope but brought significant benefits to the poor. My favourite example was from India. By making a contribution of $5,000, Western donors built a toilet block for teenage girls in a rural school. This dramatically cut the drop-out rate for the girls because, as it turns out, they (the girls) had been dropping out "in droves because of the embarrassment that they felt once they started menstruating and had no private facilities".

He brilliantly shows that Western-style market societies cannot be planned "top-down" (contrary to the goals of the Planners). Markets in the developed West are the result of complex social and political institutions/norms that have taken thousands of years to evolve. Since free market opportunities in the West and The Rest depend on "bottom-up choices" which the planners don't begin to understand, Planners are doomed to fail in creating markets in the Third World.
Though the subject of the book is a serious one, the tome is spiced with witty accounts of the histories of various Third World countries: Western support for UNITA in Angola, the Contras in Nicaragua and in Haiti. On page after page, Easterly provides grim evidence of the failure of the World Bank, the IMF and Western military intervention to bring about desired social change. More often than not, it has led to much harm as in the above-mentioned countries. The message: Economic success in the tropics cannot be planned from an office in Washington DC. Instead, as has happened in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China and India, it must be homegrown. Certainly Western aid still has a role to play but the Planners in the World Bank and IMF would do well to be more humble in their ambitions and seek to incrementally the improve lives of individuals in the poor countries.

Sometimes, Mr Easterly's analysis is quite dry. For example, he presents information showing that people in (rich) Denmark are more trustful of each other than people in (poor) The Philippines are. However, he erroneously concludes that wealth is a determinant of trust in a society. Could it be that Danes are more trustful of each other because theirs is a more ethnically homogenous and equal society than The Philippines? Could a breakdown in social institutions in The Philippines be the cause of mistrust, say more than wealth?

The distinction between Planners and Searchers struck me as being too simplistic. It is hard to believe that everyone who works for the World Bank and IMF falls neatly into the "Planner" category. Surely, the truth is more complex than the author presents it. However, since the crude distinction works well in contrasting the traditional approach to aid, I'll not fault the author for this.

Finally, the author presents some ideas for getting aid to work:

- Make aid agencies individually accountable for individual, feasible areas that help poor people improve their lives
- Give aid agencies the opportunity to experiment and search for what works
- Abandon the utopian blueprint to fix the Third World's complex problems. Instead focus on getting specific, incremental improvement in people's lives in fields such as health, sanitation and food security. Broad-brush plans for delivering market economies, `Making Poverty History" or establishing the rule of law, laudable as they are, are going to fail

In the concluding chapter, the author makes a most poignant point: "Aid won't make poverty history...only the self reliant efforts of poor people and poor societies themselves can end poverty, borrowing ideas and institutions from the West when it suits them to do so". It is a message with which I concur and one that I, as a Nigerian, have taken to heart. I recommend White Man's Burden for making such a timely point.

Excellent, 08 Feb 2008
An excellent book. Easterly sets out a balanced review of how aid has benefited/ not benefited many developing nations in an excellent thought provoking manner. Thoroughly recommended.

Intelligent critique of foreign aid policies, 18 May 2007
At the World Economic Forum in 2007, author William Easterly gave the audience some distressing news: The $2.3 trillion in aid sent to Africa since the 1950s had done nothing to increase Africa's GDP. It had been largely a waste of money. Bill Gates, who was sitting next to Easterly that day, admonished the author for focusing on narrowly economic benchmarks: "You don't eat GDP," Gates said petulantly. Easterly's riposte came a few days later in The Wall Street Journal, where he chided the world's richest college dropout for missing "the economics class that listed the components of GDP, such as food." Readers who enjoy such debates will love this acerbic, clearheaded book. Easterly, a former World Bank economist who is fervently committed to global prosperity, demolishes the myths that prop up ineffective efforts to help developing nations. He points his wrecking-ball at photo-op celebrities and utopian economists who feel that big plans and big aid budgets will eventually build big economies (the last 50 years of contrary evidence notwithstanding). Ah, you say, at least they are trying to do something good, while many others simply watch the impoverished world's agony in dismay. Instead, the author argues, only alternative, pinpointed aid tactics can succeed, but only if they use local knowledge and implementation. We recommend this to anyone interested in economic development and emerging markets, and to lovers of intelligent polemic on issues that matter.

Despite truly embarrasing title this book should be read, 09 May 2007
I bought this book fully expecting to disagree with almost everything the author said, but feeling that to have an open mind I should read it.

The title I found hugely embarrasing especially as I spend most of my time reading in public places where large proportions of the people are not white.

Easterly despite having spent a good time of his career earning money from the World Bank actually spends most of the time explaining how foreign aid policy has failed to work over the last 50 years largely due to the desire to have a 'Big Plan' and the arrogance of foreigners (from predominantly white nations) in their interventions in the rest of the world.

I actually found myself agreeing with more of this book than I thought I would and certainly most of it was easy but interesting to read. I think some of the explanations and criticisms were too clear cut but I could see that often trying to comply with a Big Plan does indeed distract from the more important task of finding ways to improve lives.

Two things about the book really annoyed me. One was the constant reference to Planners v Searchers which was much along the lines of here come the 'baddies' in the black clothes called 'Planners' and against them are the good, little people trying to bring light in their white clothes 'Searchers'.

Secondly was the use of statistics. I think if you have a good grasp of statistical analysis then you would be disappointed with the frequent lack of referencing of the data or only referencing secondary sources. If you are not statistically biased then trying to read and re-read the descriptions of the analysis - 'adjusting for reverse causality' is difficult because you are left unconvinced as to whether the conclusions presented have a strong basis.

However even saying this I felt there were many interesting points to consider in this book, generally it was written in an easy style all be it a little too frivolous at times. For anyone interested in development, aid or foreign policy this is a MUST READ book.

impressive!, 22 May 2006
finally a book on the subject worth reading....yes, it goes over some ground already covered by others...but it does offer new insight...i was skeptical reading this as an African...but in the end I found myself fully persuaded by his arguments....what an impressive book by Easterly!...this is by far the best book I have read on the subject...Easterly provides a unique blend of economic insight, personal experience and local knowledge of the issues...if it was possible, I would make every politician, activist and anyone who cares about aiding read this book BEFORE they act....its a pity that may be this book has come too late...go read it...

Brilliant, 18 Aug 2008
Bad Samaritans is a more personal and more polemical book than Ha-Joon Chang's earlier Kicking Away the Ladder, but it is still very restrained compared to most "anti-globalisation" books, and far more effective. Chang is not properly opposed to trade and markets as such, but merely argues that the current economic policies supported by the IMF and wealthy countries are hindering development and creating poverty. He bases this view not only on his very rigorous research into comparative development over his years as an economics professor, but also on his direct experience of his native South Korea's development.

Chang's brilliant riposte to Thomas L. Friedman, in the chapter "The Lexus and the Olive Tree Revisited" is worth more than the very modest cost of the book on its own. While the economics is spot-on, and very well informed, the style is easy to read, and just right for the general reader.

Another excellent economics book by Chang, 07 Jul 2008
Bad Samaritans is a more personal and more polemical book than Ha-Joon Chang's earlier Kicking Away the Ladder, but it is still very restrained compared to most "anti-globalisation" books, and far more effective. Chang is not properly opposed to trade and markets as such, but merely argues that the current economic policies supported by the IMF and wealthy countries are hindering development and creating poverty. He bases this view not only on his very rigorous research into comparative development over his years as an economics professor, but also on his direct experience of his native South Korea's development.

Chang's brilliant riposte to Thomas L. Friedman, in the chapter "The Lexus and the Olive Tree Revisited" is worth more than the very modest cost of the book on its own. While the economics is spot-on, and very well informed, the style is easy to read, and just right for the general reader.

Bad Samaritans, 09 May 2008
This is one economics text that should be read by everyone. Ha-Joon Chang the author(Prof. at Cambridge), puts Free Trade and unfettered Capitalism within a historical and even political perspective. Along with an earlier book, "Kicking Away the Ladder" he gives sufficient and tangible real world examples of how developing nations and infant & growing industries need tariffs & import substitution to both thrive and survive. An alternative title might be; Genuine & Honest Free Trade Maybe BUT Only Between Economic Equals.

[Amazon UK: See my review at www.Amazon.com]

a very misleading book, 03 Mar 2008
This book is highly polemic in opposing "neo-liberal" economics. But the author often puts ideology above history like many "neo-liberal" opponents.

Chang argues that developing countries were actually in a much better shape in 1960s and 1970s when they embraced "statist" strategy than they are now after they embraced "neo-liberal" recipes. Now the interesting question is: If they were having such a good time with "statist approach", why would they want to change? Because the evil IMF, WB and WTO intend to ruin the beautiful gardens of socialism? Was it not true that Bolivia/Argentia etc were forced to control budget because they were having 2000% inflation? Was it not true that socialism failed to lift Africa out of poverty so socialism was at least as much a failure as "neo-liberalism" in Africa? Was it not true that people in East Europe and the Soviet Union had to stand in line for two hours for a piece of meat? Was it not true that the radical socialism in China's Great Leap Forward had caused deaths of about 30 millions?

The fundamental problem of Chang's argument is he didn't see or didn't want to see that the embracement of the "neo-liberal" recipe was much more driven by the prevalent and INTERNAL economic crises that "state socialism" has inflicted on many developing countries than by some outside lunatics whose agenda was to promote an ideology at the cost of people's welfare being.

The reason of this cognitive problem is Chang fails to admit (like many others who advocate "statist" approach to development) that "statist approach" might be able to create a fast jump-start for development because state has a strong ability of mobilizing resources, BUT such an approach is never successful in creating SUSTAINABLE development, which is why almost all countries that experimented socialism encountered crises after late 1970s. When these developing countries turn to "neo-liberal" approach, some succeeded like China and India, and some failed like Argentina and Bolivia, but if they didn't turn to "neo-liberal" approach, ALL would fail (as they were already failing).

Regarding why the neo-liberalism succeeds in some countries and fails in others, it's too large a topic to elaborate here.

Chang might argue that what's happening in China, India, UK, US is not neo-liberalism because these countries still keep some protectionism, subsidies, SOEs... BUT, aren't Deng Xiaping, Reagon, Thatcher... seen representatives of "neo-liberals"? If they are NOT, who are those PURE neo-liberal who are allegedly advocating zero-tariff, zero-SOEs, zero-regulation and zero-public spending? Are these PURE neo-liberals just monsters created by Chang's imagination so that the argument against them is so easy to make that it doesn't take intelligence? Sadly, when Chang's right, he is arguing against an imagined enemy; and when he is arguing against the neo-liberals in reality, he is wrong.

must read!!, 15 Jan 2008
This book is epic! Shows the true history of globalisation and how the now developed countries used government protectionism, tariffs and subsidies to get rich.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable. Poor nations are now told by the IMF, World Bank and WTO that neo-liberal policies should be promoted and it's the only way thay will modernise.

Ofcourse as an economist, Chang doesnt realise that development does not always have to be economic development. Society can change for the better by means of social, cultural, and econimic equality. Is the society we live in all that perfect? Do we want poorer countries to "westernise", become increasingly materialistic and serve their their time in representative democracies? These questions need to be raised, debate concerning moving towards a participatory democracy where people have a say in how their lives are run, not just voting every few years.

For what he set out to achieve though, he did it with excellent efficiency.

Must read for anyone interested in poverty reduction, 30 Aug 2008
In my work over the last few years, struggling with the issues of development and poverty reduction, and I read a lot of books on the issues. Recently, I read one of the best books in the form of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion.
Just as Mr. Collier says at the end of his book, discussions on poverty and development have over the last few years been dominated by two extremes: On the one extreme Mr. Jeffrey Sachs call for more aid to "end poverty", and on the other side, William Easterly's negativity that nothing really works (in the books The End of Poverty and The White Man's Burden, respectively).
Mr. Collier strikes a marvelous and necessary balance between these two. On one side, he says about Mr. Sachs:
"At present the clarion call for the left is Jeffrey Sach's book the end of poverty. Much as I agree with Sachs' passionate call to action, I think that he has overplayed the importance of aid. Aid alone will not solve the problems of the bottom billion - we need to use a wider range of policies."
Mr. Sachs is an advocate of more money will solve the problems, but as Mr. Collier puts well in the book, many of the problems related to poverty are structural, from lack of investement, infrastructure, education, conflict, to being landlocked. Some of these problems are not solved just with more money. Unfortunately, this is a tendency in development aid nowadays, perhaps as aid agencies and staff need to justify their existence, even increase it: the need of more money, much of it in the form of budgetary support, which goes directly to a poor country's budget, in ever bigger amounts. But the link to poverty reduction is awkward to say the least: as pointed out in both Easterly's and Collier's book, higher dependence on foreign aid hardly leads to poverty reduction.
How much did I see this in Mozambique: had any of the subsistence farmers I worked with ever benefitted from the Agricultural SWAp...?
Nevertheless, while one cannot argue that aid will help everything, one can not jump into the other side of "Nothing helps" like the old disillusioned Mr. Easterly does (in my personal view Mr. Easterly is the kind of person who would have let slavery continue, not because he agreed with it, but because "we cannot do anything about it"):
"At present the clarion call for the right is economist William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is right to mock the delusions of the aid lobby. But just as Sachs exaggerates the payoff to aid, Easterly exaggerates the downside and again neglects the scope for other policies. We are not as impotent and ignorant as Easterly seems to think."
As Collier amply argues for, there are many situations and examples that aid has helped and alleviated poverty. But as Mr. Collier also amply discusses and argues for, the aid money needs to be allocated in a well-planned way, and not ignoring the context: aid alone is unlikely to help.
I must admit that at first I found the book to start really slowly: Mr. Collier took time to explain his framework for analysis, ennumerating four "traps" which developing countries, or rather, the "bottom billion", the poorest of the poorest caught in a vicious circle of misery of landlockedness, resource trap, conflict and bad governance. These four traps are inter-related and Mr. Collier carefully presents his huge array of statistics to present his argument.
This part was a somewhat tedious read, but after passing this part, the book moves into more interesting areas, namely what can be done about it, the huge dilemmas and difficulties surrounding these issues.
Nevertheless, on a more critical view, the book's argument is built too much on statistics. It makes it powerful, but at the same time one can feel that the argumentation, like with all statistics, is political and absolutist: in social sciences, there are exceptions to all statistics! At the same time, some of the correlations, like for instance between post-conflict situations and democracy, seem so vague that I would never look at a specific situation with that data, but only focus on the context.
Personally, I like that he says it can be done - too often in the world people say: "there have always been poor people, and there always will be". While I don't deny this is true, I find it appalling that this should be used as an excuse: we have always had murders, rape, wars, but nobody in their right mind would say we should do nothing about it!
I like the book, because we finally have a well-written balance abut development aid, something that has been missing for a while as the issue is discussed more and more.

Hard-hitting indictment of development's failure , 01 May 2008
getAbstract finds that this concise, clearly written and hard-hitting book by Paul Collier, one of the world's leading experts on Africa, is a must-read for anyone concerned with development, economic justice, trade, immigration, terrorism and related issues. The author has scant patience with sacred cows of either the right or the left. He penetrates the fictions and fantasies that have helped drive not only unproductive but actually counterproductive policies on aid, trade, investment and more. The book is enlightening, and entertaining in the way that good satire is entertaining. It is also inspiring, since Collier goes beyond merely identifying problems: He offers credible suggestions for solutions.

Beyond the Survival of the Fattest, 30 Apr 2008
While this is a scholarly economics textbook, the author makes a deliberate and commendable effort to keep the language, structure and flow of complex ideas accessible and captivating to the general reader. Its scope and inspiration is universal but the studies are mainly centred on poor African countries caught in various traps: of conflict, dependence on natural resources, bad governance and unfavourable geography including unhelpful neighbours, harsh topography and bleak climate. Collier's basic message is upbeat: none of the traps is inescapable, in spite of the current low rate and low probability of sustained exit from a trap for the billion or so living in the no or negative growth countries.

In the first part of the book, the author draws on extensive in-depth collaborative research to make very subtle analyses of the relationship between conflict and under development. Regrettably, the end result has sometimes the ring of the medieval disputations on the sex of angels. The direction of causation is rarely straight forward even after exhaustive wading through pools of data.

The problem of human as well as financial capital flight as an obstacle to economic growth is dealt with at greater length and cogency. The new approach here involves treating the emigration of skilled and unskilled labour and expatriation of financial resources in the same way as a risk mitigation strategy for the individual. To retain both funds and skills will require elimination of the perceived investment risk profile of the country.

But how can we reduce the growth-negating resource capture by the elite, from aid, natural resources such as oil and minerals? Collier cites the impact of the Extractive Resources Transparency Initiative and the Charter on Blood Diamonds as instances of a fairly effective multilateral approach.

The author further explores the self-perpetuating monster of poor governance, underscoring the need to put in place effective mechanisms for restraint: electoral competition, checks and balances, an independent judiciary and a free press. He shows how publicising budgetary allocations and disbursements for specific projects in the media allows for and encourages follow up by beneficiaries and vigilance by civil society groups to minimise or eliminate leakages. With a wry sense of humour, he advocates the repeal of the law of the political jungle, aptly termed "the survival of the fattest", noting that where patronage politics is feasible, electoral competition encourages the bribery of opinion makers or community leaders instead of using the provision of public services as an electoral argument, leaving the corrupt as the winners.

Should military intervention be an option? Contrasting Iraq and Kosovo, Somalia and Sierra Leone, he sees it as an option that should not be discarded but rather managed with utmost care and resolve. Will freer international trade, as promoted by WTO, help the poorest countries break out of the traps? Collier has doubts and makes a case for the AGOA type of initiative which involves positive discrimination; a handicap race where the Asian front runners have their feet shackled in tariffs to facilitate the entry of products from the poorest African countries. But beyond the traditional instruments of aid and trade, the emphasis of the G8 and other actors in development needs to shift towards issues of security strategies coupled with the application of internationally sanctioned norms and standards of equity and governance.


The Bottom Billion, 06 Apr 2008
I find Paul Collier's book(The Bottom Billion) interesting to read. He easily highlights Many of the economic difficulties facing the poorest countries in the world. He then suggests multi-faced approach that can be applied to tackle some of the issues he highlighted, not only by the poor countries themselves but also by the so called "donor" countries.

Much of Paul's argument is based on data collected by international organization such as IMF and The World Bank and so on. When reading through the pages you would meet some high ranking individuals in these countries, i.e. the Finance minister, but rarely the ordinary person in the street and the challenges he/she faces. In my opinion this is the main weakness of this book. It's a top down approach. He does not talk so much about some of the side effects that export driven policies had on these countries such as planting crops for export in the best available land instead of the staple food of the country which people need to survive. Overall very good book, though I encourage Paul to get out of the big hotels and ministerial headquarters and meet ordinary people next time he visits one of these countries.


A joy to read, 02 Jan 2008
This is a thought-provoking book: the problems of the poorest countries are deeply and cogently analysed and explained, and appropriate policies proposed. It has the added virtue of being written in simple and refreshingly straight-forward language. There is much that is absolutely original here.

The one comment I have is that Collier bases some of his policy prescriptions on the assumption that the only way to develop is through export, which seems to suggest export-led growth and large projects. There is nothing about micro projects and the need to work with the poor to alleviate poverty through the provision of appropriate/intermediate technology.

I e-mailed him about this and received a rapid and courteous reply saying that he did not have space in the book to cover everything and that he agreed that exporting only makes sense as a growth strategy for some countries and that he has no fault to find with the micro approach.

He also suggested I might write this review; so I did.

PS I also thoroughly recommend the lecture on his website.



Witty and insightful account of the failure of aid in Africa, 11 May 2008
How come $2.3 trillion dollars of Western aid has been spent in the last 50 years mostly in Africa, my native continent, and yet millions of children still die of preventable diseases like dysentery, cholera and malaria? Why have the vast amounts of aid money and Western good intentions not been able to lift Africa out of back-breaking poverty? William Easterly's argument, in this fascinating book, is that Western aid has failed because of the traditional approach that it has taken to tackling Third World poverty: planning and bureaucracy.

According to Mr Easterly, Western aid in the form on the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the IMF) is the most recent reincarnation of the White Man's Burden, a phrase which was immortalized by Kipling. The basic argument of the White Man's Burden in the 19th century was that Western Europe spread Christianity, commerce and civilization to the coloured, benighted races of the world (of course for the benefit of the Africans and Asians).

Mr Easterly, a former World Bank Economist, writes that the command-and-control bureaucrats of the aid establishment, whom he dubs as Planners, cannot understand the complexities of getting aid to the desperate poor because:
- There is no accountability for service delivery, as the poor cannot do this by voting.
- Planners' thinking is dominated by grandiose, non-specific plans such as ending poverty and the Millennium Development Goals
- Planners think that they already have the answers. Hence, they tend to be patronizing and have a ready-made answer for every poor country; structural adjustment, free markets and privatization

The author then contrasts the failure of the Planners with Searchers, whom he defines as people who work at the local level seeking incremental economic change for the poor by constantly experimenting with new ideas on the ground. He provides interesting accounts of aid projects, done by Searchers; Westerners and Africans, which were modest in scope but brought significant benefits to the poor. My favourite example was from India. By making a contribution of $5,000, Western donors built a toilet block for teenage girls in a rural school. This dramatically cut the drop-out rate for the girls because, as it turns out, they (the girls) had been dropping out "in droves because of the embarrassment that they felt once they started menstruating and had no private facilities".

He brilliantly shows that Western-style market societies cannot be planned "top-down" (contrary to the goals of the Planners). Markets in the developed West are the result of complex social and political institutions/norms that have taken thousands of years to evolve. Since free market opportunities in the West and The Rest depend on "bottom-up choices" which the planners don't begin to understand, Planners are doomed to fail in creating markets in the Third World.
Though the subject of the book is a serious one, the tome is spiced with witty accounts of the histories of various Third World countries: Western support for UNITA in Angola, the Contras in Nicaragua and in Haiti. On page after page, Easterly provides grim evidence of the failure of the World Bank, the IMF and Western military intervention to bring about desired social change. More often than not, it has led to much harm as in the above-mentioned countries. The message: Economic success in the tropics cannot be planned from an office in Washington DC. Instead, as has happened in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China and India, it must be homegrown. Certainly Western aid still has a role to play but the Planners in the World Bank and IMF would do well to be more humble in their ambitions and seek to incrementally the improve lives of individuals in the poor countries.

Sometimes, Mr Easterly's analysis is quite dry. For example, he presents information showing that people in (rich) Denmark are more trustful of each other than people in (poor) The Philippines are. However, he erroneously concludes that wealth is a determinant of trust in a society. Could it be that Danes are more trustful of each other because theirs is a more ethnically homogenous and equal society than The Philippines? Could a breakdown in social institutions in The Philippines be the cause of mistrust, say more than wealth?

The distinction between Planners and Searchers struck me as being too simplistic. It is hard to believe that everyone who works for the World Bank and IMF falls neatly into the "Planner" category. Surely, the truth is more complex than the author presents it. However, since the crude distinction works well in contrasting the traditional approach to aid, I'll not fault the author for this.

Finally, the author presents some ideas for getting aid to work:

- Make aid agencies individually accountable for individual, feasible areas that help poor people improve their lives
- Give aid agencies the opportunity to experiment and search for what works
- Abandon the utopian blueprint to fix the Third World's complex problems. Instead focus on getting specific, incremental improvement in people's lives in fields such as health, sanitation and food security. Broad-brush plans for delivering market economies, `Making Poverty History" or establishing the rule of law, laudable as they are, are going to fail

In the concluding chapter, the author makes a most poignant point: "Aid won't make poverty history...only the self reliant efforts of poor people and poor societies themselves can end poverty, borrowing ideas and institutions from the West when it suits them to do so". It is a message with which I concur and one that I, as a Nigerian, have taken to heart. I recommend White Man's Burden for making such a timely point.

Excellent, 08 Feb 2008
An excellent book. Easterly sets out a balanced review of how aid has benefited/ not benefited many developing nations in an excellent thought provoking manner. Thoroughly recommended.

Intelligent critique of foreign aid policies, 18 May 2007
At the World Economic Forum in 2007, author William Easterly gave the audience some distressing news: The $2.3 trillion in aid sent to Africa since the 1950s had done nothing to increase Africa's GDP. It had been largely a waste of money. Bill Gates, who was sitting next to Easterly that day, admonished the author for focusing on narrowly economic benchmarks: "You don't eat GDP," Gates said petulantly. Easterly's riposte came a few days later in The Wall Street Journal, where he chided the world's richest college dropout for missing "the economics class that listed the components of GDP, such as food." Readers who enjoy such debates will love this acerbic, clearheaded book. Easterly, a former World Bank economist who is fervently committed to global prosperity, demolishes the myths that prop up ineffective efforts to help developing nations. He points his wrecking-ball at photo-op celebrities and utopian economists who feel that big plans and big aid budgets will eventually build big economies (the last 50 years of contrary evidence notwithstanding). Ah, you say, at least they are trying to do something good, while many others simply watch the impoverished world's agony in dismay. Instead, the author argues, only alternative, pinpointed aid tactics can succeed, but only if they use local knowledge and implementation. We recommend this to anyone interested in economic development and emerging markets, and to lovers of intelligent polemic on issues that matter.

Despite truly embarrasing title this book should be read, 09 May 2007
I bought this book fully expecting to disagree with almost everything the author said, but feeling that to have an open mind I should read it.

The title I found hugely embarrasing especially as I spend most of my time reading in public places where large proportions of the people are not white.

Easterly despite having spent a good time of his career earning money from the World Bank actually spends most of the time explaining how foreign aid policy has failed to work over the last 50 years largely due to the desire to have a 'Big Plan' and the arrogance of foreigners (from predominantly white nations) in their interventions in the rest of the world.

I actually found myself agreeing with more of this book than I thought I would and certainly most of it was easy but interesting to read. I think some of the explanations and criticisms were too clear cut but I could see that often trying to comply with a Big Plan does indeed distract from the more important task of finding ways to improve lives.

Two things about the book really annoyed me. One was the constant reference to Planners v Searchers which was much along the lines of here come the 'baddies' in the black clothes called 'Planners' and against them are the good, little people trying to bring light in their white clothes 'Searchers'.

Secondly was the use of statistics. I think if you have a good grasp of statistical analysis then you would be disappointed with the frequent lack of referencing of the data or only referencing secondary sources. If you are not statistically biased then trying to read and re-read the descriptions of the analysis - 'adjusting for reverse causality' is difficult because you are left unconvinced as to whether the conclusions presented have a strong basis.

However even saying this I felt there were many interesting points to consider in this book, generally it was written in an easy style all be it a little too frivolous at times. For anyone interested in development, aid or foreign policy this is a MUST READ book.

impressive!, 22 May 2006
finally a book on the subject worth reading....yes, it goes over some ground already covered by others...but it does offer new insight...i was skeptical reading this as an African...but in the end I found myself fully persuaded by his arguments....what an impressive book by Easterly!...this is by far the best book I have read on the subject...Easterly provides a unique blend of economic insight, personal experience and local knowledge of the issues...if it was possible, I would make every politician, activist and anyone who cares about aiding read this book BEFORE they act....its a pity that may be this book has come too late...go read it...

Brilliant, 18 Aug 2008
Bad Samaritans is a more personal and more polemical book than Ha-Joon Chang's earlier Kicking Away the Ladder, but it is still very restrained compared to most "anti-globalisation" books, and far more effective. Chang is not properly opposed to trade and markets as such, but merely argues that the current economic policies supported by the IMF and wealthy countries are hindering development and creating poverty. He bases this view not only on his very rigorous research into comparative development over his years as an economics professor, but also on his direct experience of his native South Korea's development.

Chang's brilliant riposte to Thomas L. Friedman, in the chapter "The Lexus and the Olive Tree Revisited" is worth more than the very modest cost of the book on its own. While the economics is spot-on, and very well informed, the style is easy to read, and just right for the general reader.

Another excellent economics book by Chang, 07 Jul 2008
Bad Samaritans is a more personal and more polemical book than Ha-Joon Chang's earlier Kicking Away the Ladder, but it is still very restrained compared to most "anti-globalisation" books, and far more effective. Chang is not properly opposed to trade and markets as such, but merely argues that the current economic policies supported by the IMF and wealthy countries are hindering development and creating poverty. He bases this view not only on his very rigorous research into comparative development over his years as an economics professor, but also on his direct experience of his native South Korea's development.

Chang's brilliant riposte to Thomas L. Friedman, in the chapter "The Lexus and the Olive Tree Revisited" is worth more than the very modest cost of the book on its own. While the economics is spot-on, and very well informed, the style is easy to read, and just right for the general reader.

Bad Samaritans, 09 May 2008
This is one economics text that should be read by everyone. Ha-Joon Chang the author(Prof. at Cambridge), puts Free Trade and unfettered Capitalism within a historical and even political perspective. Along with an earlier book, "Kicking Away the Ladder" he gives sufficient and tangible real world examples of how developing nations and infant & growing industries need tariffs & import substitution to both thrive and survive. An alternative title might be; Genuine & Honest Free Trade Maybe BUT Only Between Economic Equals.

[Amazon UK: See my review at www.Amazon.com]

a very misleading book, 03 Mar 2008
This book is highly polemic in opposing "neo-liberal" economics. But the author often puts ideology above history like many "neo-liberal" opponents.

Chang argues that developing countries were actually in a much better shape in 1960s and 1970s when they embraced "statist" strategy than they are now after they embraced "neo-liberal" recipes. Now the interesting question is: If they were having such a good time with "statist approach", why would they want to change? Because the evil IMF, WB and WTO intend to ruin the beautiful gardens of socialism? Was it not true that Bolivia/Argentia etc were forced to control budget because they were having 2000% inflation? Was it not true that socialism failed to lift Africa out of poverty so socialism was at least as much a failure as "neo-liberalism" in Africa? Was it not true that people in East Europe and the Soviet Union had to stand in line for two hours for a piece of meat? Was it not true that the radical socialism in China's Great Leap Forward had caused deaths of about 30 millions?

The fundamental problem of Chang's argument is he didn't see or didn't want to see that the embracement of the "neo-liberal" recipe was much more driven by the prevalent and INTERNAL economic crises that "state socialism" has inflicted on many developing countries than by some outside lunatics whose agenda was to promote an ideology at the cost of people's welfare being.

The reason of this cognitive problem is Chang fails to admit (like many others who advocate "statist" approach to development) that "statist approach" might be able to create a fast jump-start for development because state has a strong ability of mobilizing resources, BUT such an approach is never successful in creating SUSTAINABLE development, which is why almost all countries that experimented socialism encountered crises after late 1970s. When these developing countries turn to "neo-liberal" approach, some succeeded like China and India, and some failed like Argentina and Bolivia, but if they didn't turn to "neo-liberal" approach, ALL would fail (as they were already failing).

Regarding why the neo-liberalism succeeds in some countries and fails in others, it's too large a topic to elaborate here.

Chang might argue that what's happening in China, India, UK, US is not neo-liberalism because these countries still keep some protectionism, subsidies, SOEs... BUT, aren't Deng Xiaping, Reagon, Thatcher... seen representatives of "neo-liberals"? If they are NOT, who are those PURE neo-liberal who are allegedly advocating zero-tariff, zero-SOEs, zero-regulation and zero-public spending? Are these PURE neo-liberals just monsters created by Chang's imagination so that the argument against them is so easy to make that it doesn't take intelligence? Sadly, when Chang's right, he is arguing against an imagined enemy; and when he is arguing against the neo-liberals in reality, he is wrong.

must read!!, 15 Jan 2008
This book is epic! Shows the true history of globalisation and how the now developed countries used government protectionism, tariffs and subsidies to get rich.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable. Poor nations are now told by the IMF, World Bank and WTO that neo-liberal policies should be promoted and it's the only way thay will modernise.

Ofcourse as an economist, Chang doesnt realise that development does not always have to be economic development. Society can change for the better by means of social, cultural, and econimic equality. Is the society we live in all that perfect? Do we want poorer countries to "westernise", become increasingly materialistic and serve their their time in representative democracies? These questions need to be raised, debate concerning moving towards a participatory democracy where people have a say in how their lives are run, not just voting every few years.

For what he set out to achieve though, he did it with excellent efficiency.

Cogent analysis of the economic impact of neoliberal politics, 13 Apr 2006
This is an essential, thought-provoking book for anyone engaged in international business, the media, corporate strategy and governance. It fills the gaps between what you see in the media and what you experience as a citizen and businessperson by very ably explaining the theory and practice of neoliberalism. This philosophy has largely replaced liberalism as a popular political doctrine. The results are not very impressive from a democratic perspective, according to this analysis by author David Harvey. Armed with a different perspective and interesting sources, he puts neoliberal political thought and practice into its modern context, in everything from foreign policy, to how the media (led by Fox News) presents events, to the emergence of the new super wealthy class built on huge profits raked in by select corporations. He dedicates a chapter to the way this policy has worked in China, and frequently cites its effects in other countries. We think this well-documented short book makes it easier for readers to understand contemporary events and recommends it to business strategists, media professionals and concerned world citizens.



Neoliberalism co-opted the 1960s counter-culture, 06 Feb 2006
Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Augusto Pinochet - these are the famous faces of neoliberalism, the economic (and, to some extent, philosophical) doctrine that advocates unregulated capitalism, free trade, small government (and hence low taxation) and the marketization of virtually every aspect of life. In this book, David Harvey does a good job of analysing the resurrection and rehabilitation of neoliberalism in the mid/late 1970s (with Paul Volocker at the US Federal Reserve Board, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Deng Xiaoping's acension to the leadership in China); and he brings it right up to today, as China steams ahead in economic expansion and outsourcing of jobs becomes an evermore noticable aspect of dislocation in 'the West'.
Essentially, Harvey's thesis is that neoliberalism is a form of class war: it involves a massive transfer of wealth from the developing/underdeveloped world to the developed world. When neoliberalism threatens ruling class power, Harvey argues, the rules of the game suddenly change: neoliberalism departs from classical liberal economic theory to safeguard ruling interests. An example includes the fact that the IMF intervened in the Russian currency crisis in 1997-8 to save Western investors from having to suffer bad debts: such intervention took the form of foisting painful 'restructuring' programmes on the Russian economy, which manifested itself in massive cuts in public expenditure (public employment, social welfare provision etc.). Under classical liberal economic theory, the investors should have suffered the bad debts, while the IMF should have helped the Russian government manage its currency difficulties without drastic cuts in public provision.
Harvey is good at tracing the way neoliberalism built up support (or, at least, tolerance) among the public. The concept of 'freedom' was the keystone, he argues. Neoliberals in governments, think tanks, universities etc. argued that freedom from outside interference was the greatest form of freedom. Hence, all forms of interference with the individual citizen (say, high taxation to finance a generous welfare state) were presented as illegitimate and tyrannical. Consequently, neoliberalism found a receptive audience in the individualistic generation that came of age in the 1960s: their various forms of 'rebellion' could be easily absorbed into the cool, ironic and self-reflexive capitalism that neoliberalism unleashed.(Thomas Frank has written a lot about this, the 'commodification of dissent'.)
Harvey ends by insisting that neoliberalism can be challenged: it is not invensible. Yet, I wish he devoted a little more space to discussing strategies that could be used in the battle to defeat it. Nevertheless, this is a good place to start on your journey towards creating a just and more democratic world.

Must read for anyone interested in poverty reduction, 30 Aug 2008
In my work over the last few years, struggling with the issues of development and poverty reduction, and I read a lot of books on the issues. Recently, I read one of the best books in the form of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion.
Just as Mr. Collier says at the end of his book, discussions on poverty and development have over the last few years been dominated by two extremes: On the one extreme Mr. Jeffrey Sachs call for more aid to "end poverty", and on the other side, William Easterly's negativity that nothing really works (in the books The End of Poverty and The White Man's Burden, respectively).
Mr. Collier strikes a marvelous and necessary balance between these two. On one side, he says about Mr. Sachs:
"At present the clarion call for the left is Jeffrey Sach's book the end of poverty. Much as I agree with Sachs' passionate call to action, I think that he has overplayed the importance of aid. Aid alone will not solve the problems of the bottom billion - we need to use a wider range of policies."
Mr. Sachs is an advocate of more money will solve the problems, but as Mr. Collier puts well in the book, many of the problems related to poverty are structural, from lack of investement, infrastructure, education, conflict, to being landlocked. Some of these problems are not solved just with more money. Unfortunately, this is a tendency in development aid nowadays, perhaps as aid agencies and staff need to justify their existence, even increase it: the need of more money, much of it in the form of budgetary support, which goes directly to a poor country's budget, in ever bigger amounts. But the link to poverty reduction is awkward to say the least: as pointed out in both Easterly's and Collier's book, higher dependence on foreign aid hardly leads to poverty reduction.
How much did I see this in Mozambique: had any of the subsistence farmers I worked with ever benefitted from the Agricultural SWAp...?
Nevertheless, while one cannot argue that aid will help everything, one can not jump into the other side of "Nothing helps" like the old disillusioned Mr. Easterly does (in my personal view Mr. Easterly is the kind of person who would have let slavery continue, not because he agreed with it, but because "we cannot do anything about it"):
"At present the clarion call for the right is economist William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is right to mock the delusions of the aid lobby. But just as Sachs exaggerates the payoff to aid, Easterly exaggerates the downside and again neglects the scope for other policies. We are not as impotent and ignorant as Easterly seems to think."
As Collier amply argues for, there are many situations and examples that aid has helped and alleviated poverty. But as Mr. Collier also amply discusses and argues for, the aid money needs to be allocated in a well-planned way, and not ignoring the context: aid alone is unlikely to help.
I must admit that at first I found the book to start really slowly: Mr. Collier took time to explain his framework for analysis, ennumerating four "traps" which developing countries, or rather, the "bottom billion", the poorest of the poorest caught in a vicious circle of misery of landlockedness, resource trap, conflict and bad governance. These four traps are inter-related and Mr. Collier carefully presents his huge array of statistics to present his argument.
This part was a somewhat tedious read, but after passing this part, the book moves into more interesting areas, namely what can be done about it, the huge dilemmas and difficulties surrounding these issues.
Nevertheless, on a more critical view, the book's argument is built too much on statistics. It makes it powerful, but at the same time one can feel that the argumentation, like with all statistics, is political and absolutist: in social sciences, there are exceptions to all statistics! At the same time, some of the correlations, like for instance between post-conflict situations and democracy, seem so vague that I would never look at a specific situation with that data, but only focus on the c