In more than one hundred developing countries, international organizations continuously offer practical assistance for economic advancement and social change--assistance that in some cases forms a substantial part of national programs. This book examines international aid in three countries-Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia--in order to ascertain how assisting organizations exert influence on member governments. Professor Gordenker draws on interviews, information usually inaccessible to observers, and his own direct field observation of programs established by the United Nations' system of organizations in the three countries during the late 1960s, immediately after their independence from British administration. This period witnessed sharp changes in national development policies and the political turmoil produced by the Rhodesian revolt. The author analyzes in detail the creation, bureaucratic consideration, and execution of important projects. His conclusions cast doubt on the existence of a reliable process by which international organizations may influence national governments, and he explains why such doubt is well-founded. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In 2010, Haiti was ravaged by a brutal earthquake that affected the lives of millions. The call to assist those in need was heard around the globe. Yet two years later humanitarian efforts led by governments and NGOs have largely failed. Resources are not reaching the needy due to bureaucratic red tape, and many assets have been squandered. How can efforts intended to help the suffering fail so badly? In this timely and provocative book, Christopher J. Coyne uses the economic way of thinking to explain why this and other humanitarian efforts that intend to do good end up doing nothing or causing harm.
In addition to Haiti, Coyne considers a wide range of interventions. He explains why the U.S. government was ineffective following Hurricane Katrina, why the international humanitarian push to remove Muammar Gaddafi in Libya may very well end up causing more problems than prosperity, and why decades of efforts to respond to crises and foster development around the world have resulted in repeated failures.
In place of the dominant approach to state-led humanitarian action, this book offers a bold alternative, focused on establishing an environment of economic freedom. If we are willing to experiment with aid--asking questions about how to foster development as a process of societal discovery, or how else we might engage the private sector, for instance--we increase the range of alternatives to help people and empower them to improve their communities. Anyone concerned with and dedicated to alleviating human suffering in the short term or for the long haul, from policymakers and activists to scholars, will find this book to be an insightful and provocative reframing of humanitarian action.

?????? Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is an international humanitarian organization, committed to providing medical assistance to populations in danger and to raising awareness of the plight of the people they help. Today MSF is active in more than 60 countries in the world. ?????? MSF has been working in Peru since 1985. In Peru, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is low, but highest amongst the most neglected members of society there, mainly homosexual men and commercial sex workers. Since 2004, MSF has offered HIV/AIDS care in the slum of Villa El Salvador, Lima. ?????? In Lima, MSF has been working in Lurigancho, one of the most populated prisons of Latin America. In this prison the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS is 5 to 7 times higher than in the rest of the country. ?????? At the end of 2007 MSF hand over all Peruvian projects to local authorities, leaving the country after almost 25 years. ?????? Larry Towell (Magnum Photos) was commissioned by MSF to travel to the prison and the slums in Lima to photograph the result of MSF's 25-year presence, and show that the area is now ready to continue its fight against HIV and AIDS on its own. ?????? Towell brings us black and white images of people shunned by society and desperate through poverty, their situation exacerbated through the endemic HIV and AIDS in their already marginalised population. MSF has targeted their cause for the past 25 years. ?????? This book is a celebration of their work and the people whose existence they have salvaged.

Once again nature's fury has taken a toll in pain, suffering, and lives lost. In recognition of the need for a rapid and appropriate response, CRC Press will donate $5 to the American Red Cross for every copy of Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges sold. In the past, societies would learn from disasters and move the location of their urban development to safer areas, allowing naturally occurring ecosystems to maintain themselves and for societies to exist symbiotically with the environment. These days, however, it seems that society no longer takes cues from the environment but rather relies on technical advancement to attempt to control and overcome the environment, sometimes with wholly unsuccessful and even catastrophic results. Emphasizing non-traditional approaches to disaster recovery and rebuilding communities, Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges brings together leading research from top academics and scholars on the different ways various societies have experienced disasters, learned from them, and revised their thinking about building community preparedness and resiliency pre- and post-disaster. Provides a clear, concise, and up-to-date understanding of best practices for rebuilding community institutions and community development after a disaster Focuses on integrated solutions for ecological restoration and community development in disaster recovery planning and implementation Compares and contrasts community rebuilding between different nations at different stages of development, economic power, and stability Includes case studies that illustrate best practices, integrating the concept of community and community rebuilding for local, national, and international stakeholders All chapters offer diverse community examples that form a framework for comparing best practices. They focus on integrated solutions for ecological restoration and community development and explain how communities can reduce their vulnerability to disasters and reduce recovery time following a disaster. The book indentifies the opportunities and challenges communities are most likely to face on the road to recovery and supplies the interdisciplinary, social scientific understanding required to effectively address those challenges.

At the global level, international actors have repeatedly expressed their desire to end hunger and food insecurity. However, food insecurity has persisted. More analysis is hence needed on the link between continuously high levels of global food insecurity and the ever increasing flow of development aid. Global Food Security and Development Aid investigates the impact that development aid has had on food security in developing countries and includes international case studies on Peru, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam. It examines the effect of development aid in general and the impact of aid divided into different categories based on donor, mechanism and sector to which it is provided. In each examined relationship between aid and food security, particular attention is paid to the potentially intervening role played by the quality of national and/or local governance. The book makes policy recommendations, most importantly that donors should take greater care in considering which types of aid are suitable to which specific countries, localities, and development goals, and account for expected developments in the complex relationship between aid, food security, and governance. This book will be of considerable interest to students, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of development aid and food security.

We are all aware of the extreme hunger and poverty that afflict the world's poor. We hear the facts, see the images on television, buy the T-shirt and are moved as individuals and governments to dig deep into our pockets. Yet what happens to all this aid? Why after 50 years and $2.3 trillion are there still children dying for lack of twelve cents medicine? Why are there so many people still living on less than $1 a day without clean water, food, sanitation, shelter, education or medicine? In The White Man's Burden William Easterly, acclaimed author and former economist at the World Bank, addresses these twin tragedies head on. While recognising the energy and compassion behind the campaign to make poverty history he argues urgently and powerfully that grand plans and good intentions are a part of the problem not the solution. Giving aid is not enough, we must ensure that it reaches the people who need it most and the only way to make this happens is through accountability and by learning from past experiences. Without claiming to have all the answers, William Easterly chastises the complacent and patronising attitude of the West that attempts to impose solutions from above. In this book, which is by turns angry, moving, irreverent but always rigorous, he calls on each and everyone of us to take responsibility, whether donors, aid workers or ordinary citizens, so that more aid reaches the people it is supposed to help, the mother who cannot feed her children, the little girl who has to collect firewood rather than go to school, the father who cannot work because he has been crippled by war.

The Robert T Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the Stafford Act) authorises the President to issue major disaster or emergency declarations in response to catastrophes in the United States that overwhelm state and local governments. This book examines concerns expressed by policymakers and experts that current Stafford Act declarations are inadequate to respond to, and recover from, and presents the arguments for and against amending the act to add a catastrophic declaration amendment.

The question of the effectiveness or counter-productivity of foreign aid is one of the great issues facing the world today. This volume arose from a study conducted for an inter-governmental task force. The team surveyed the published literature, reviewed existing evaluations of aid projects, and undertook seven detailed country studies. The basic finding is that the majority of aid succeeds in terms of its own objectives and obtains a reasonable rate of return. At the same time, this book analyses the frequent failings of aid projects, compares these failings with other forms of private and public investment, and proposes measures for improving aid effectiveness. New to this edition: For the second edition the book has been shortened, removing mainly the more technical parts. The data in the text and tables have been brought up to date, the text has been revised, and each chapter has a new section added reviewing the areas of debate and research findings since 1986. The bibliography has also been updated. This book is intended for graduates or undergraduates studying development studies or development economics. Academics policy-makers and commentators.

A compelling and definitive account of why we need to radically rethink our approach to dealing with catastrophic events Catastrophic events such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Tohoku "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that hit the eastern seaboard of Japan in 2012 are seen as surprises that have a low probability of occurring but have a debilitating impact when they do. In this eye-opening journey through modern and ancient risk management practices, Jon Coaffee explains why we need to find a new way to navigate the deeply uncertain world that we live in. Examining how governments have responded to terrorist threats, climate change, and natural disasters, Coaffee shows how and why these measures have proven inadequate and what should be done to make us more resilient. While conventional approaches have focused on planning and preparing for disruptions and enhanced our ability to "bounce back," our focus should be on anticipating future challenges and enhancing our capacity to adapt to new threats.

Recent years have witnessed considerable speculation about the potential of open data to bring about wide-scale transformation. The bulk of existing evidence about the impact of open data, however, focuses on high-income countries. Much less is known about open data’s role and value in low- and middle-income countries, and more generally about its possible contributions to economic and social development. Open Data for Developing Economies features in-depth case studies on how open data is having an impact across the developing world-from an agriculture initiative in Colombia to data-driven healthcare projects in Uganda and South Africa to crisis response in Nepal. The analysis built on these case studies aims to create actionable intelligence regarding: (a) the conditions under which open data is most (and least) effective in development, presented in the form of a Periodic Table of Open Data; (b) strategies to maximize the positive contributions of open data to development; and (c) the means for limiting open data’s harms on developing countries.

This is an important and innovative book which was well-received and attracted much media attention when it appeared in hardback in 1990. It advocates a new approach to the relief of famine and hardship in developing countries by addressing the political issues that prevent fair distribution of resources, rather than by simply seeking to provide more food and services. As such this book could prove extremely influential, and, in paperback, will be more easily available to relief agencies and third world charities, as well as to students and concerned individuals.

Amartya Sen, the co-author is internationally eminent - he is a former delegate and Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, and he recently won the Fiat-sponsored Giovanni Agnelli Prize for promoting the understanding of ethical issues in modern society. Lengthy articles about Sen and his books have appeared in The Independent, the Times Higher Education Supplement, and the New York Review of Books, to name a few.

Food aid has played a key role in responding to the extreme poverty and disasters afflicting millions of people in the developing world. It is at the centre of much political discussion, both nationally and internationally, and there have been notable successes, yet there is doubt and criticism about the appropriateness of food aid and confusion about the deep-rooted problems which perpetuate these calamities. Is food aid doing more harm than good? Can food aid help, not hinder, long-term development and self-reliance? Would a cheque not be better than food?;This book is designed to give a clear insight into the key issues, presenting a balanced assessment of the uses and misuses of food aid and relating these to the complex realities of the international economy. It is aimed at first-degree courses in development economics, scholars and policy-makers in the field and the general reader concerned with these issues.

In Europe after World War II, U.S. economic aid helped to ensure economic revival, political stability, and democracy. In the Third World, however, aid has been associated with very different tendencies: uneven political development, violence, political instability, and authoritarian rule in most countries. Despite these differing patterns of political change in Europe and the Third World, however, American conceptions of political development have remained largely constant: democracy, stability, anti-communism. Why did the objectives and theories of U.S. aid officials and social scientists remain largely the same in the face of such negative results and despite the seeming inappropriateness of their ideas in the Third World context? Robert Packenham believes that the thinking of both officials and social scientists was profoundly influenced by the "Liberal Tradition" and its view of the American historical experience. Thus, he finds that U.S. opposition to revolution in the Third World steins not only from perceptions of security needs but also from the very conceptions of development that arc held by Americans. American pessimism about the consequences of revolution is intimately related to American optimism about the political effects of economic growth. In his final chapter the author offers some suggestions for a future policy. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.