Some books for you!   22/05/07   Making Aid Work by Abhijit Banerjee In Making Aid Work, Abhijit Banerjee--an "aid optimist"--argues that aid has much to contribute, but the lack of analysis about which programs really work causes considerable waste and inefficiency, which in turn fuels unwarranted pessimism about the role of aid in fostering economic development. Banerjee challenges aid donors to do better. Building on the model used to evaluate new drugs before they come on the market, he argues that donors should assess programs with field experiments using randomized trials. In fact, he writes, given the number of such experiments already undertaken, current levels of development assistance could focus entirely on programs with proven records of success in experimental conditions. Link: MIT     Inclusive Aid by Leslie Groves, Rachel Hinton Rapid and profound changes are taking place in international development. The past two decades have promoted the ideals of participation and partnership, yet key decisions affecting people's lives continue to be made without sufficient attention to the socio-political realities of the countries in which they live. Embedded working traditions, vested interests and institutional inertia mean that old habits and cultures persist among the development community. Planning continues as though it were free of unpredictable interactions among stakeholders. This book is about the need to recognise the complex, non-linear nature of development assistance and how bureaucratic procedures and power relations hinder poverty reduction in the new aid environment. Link: Amazon A Radical History of Development Studies by Uma Kothari In this book some of the leading thinkers in development studies trace the history of their multi-disciplinary subject from late the colonial period and its establishment during decolonization all the way to its contemporary concerns with poverty reduction. A Radical History of Development Studies is intended to stimulate new thinking on where the discipline may be moving. It ought also to be of great use to students coming to grips with the historical continuities and divergences in the theory and practice of development. Link: Amazon

 

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