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  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407023045
  • Imprint: Ebury Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

Aid and Other Dirty Business

How Good Intentions Have Failed the World's Poor




A startling insight into how the West is failing Africa and what we can do about it - by an aid industry insider

Do you know why Africa is so poor? What really happens to your charity money? Why do trade rules fail African countries and yet cost you too? We've heard it all before: the corrupt leaders, heartless global corporations, the wicked World Bank.

But the answers are much closer to home... and so are the solutions

When Giles Bolton began working in the world of aid and development, he travelled to Africa convinced that he could solve problems, save villages and sing songs with the locals under a shimmering sunset. The reality proved rather less romantic, and far more shocking...

Aid and Other Dirty Business is a radical, brilliantly readable and totally original approach to the seemingly unending problem of poverty in Africa. It may change your life, but, more importantly, it will help you change the lives of others.

  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407023045
  • Imprint: Ebury Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

About the author

Giles Bolton

Born in London in 1973, Giles Bolton has been closely involved in Africa and it's development for more than ten years as civil servant, diplomat and aid worker. From 1996 until 2004 he worked for the British Government's Department for International Development (DFID), in countries such as Kenya, Rwanda and Iraq.

Praise for Aid and Other Dirty Business

Engaging, absorbing and enlightening - everyone interested, from the aid worker to the armchair activist, should invest in this book. If Poor Story doesn't win your heart and mind to the cause of ending extreme poverty, nothing else will

Oxfam website

A vivid account of the everyday problems facing African countries

Financial Times

A shocking account ... clearly, intelligently and sensitively written

City AM

[A] heartening book on Africa and remedies for its plight ... Bolton doesn't rant or preach ... he balances hard facts with strong ideas

Independent

Superbly lucid and readable

Guardian

If you've ever wondered why Africa is still poor, this is the book for you ... Bolton writes with energy and directness

Metro