| Description |
xiii, 303 pages ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-299) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction/The Great Paradox of Development Assistance -- Romance -- Illusion -- The Developing World and Its Condition -- A Straw in the Wind -- Being Useful or Being Used -- The Evolution of the Idea of Development -- Warm Bodies -- Sliding toward Dependency -- Development Assistance as an Industry (the "Dev Biz") -- Trying Simply to Help -- Avoiding History -- The Helper and the Helped -- Confusing Stakes -- The Consequences of Avoiding Certain Universals of Human Nature -- Spare No Expense--the Very Best -- For the People, By the People -- The Mismatch of Organizational Imperatives and Money -- Position, Not Condition -- Headless Chickens -- The Professionalization of Development -- Too Many Cooks -- Rhetorical Support -- Marketing Development -- Unintended Consequences -- The People's Program -- Conclusion/The Case for a Radical Reduction in Development Assistance. |
| Summary |
A well-informed critique of the development assistance industry, written by a longtime insider. For more than thirty-five years, Thomas W. Dichter has worked in the field of international development, managing and evaluating projects for nongovernmental organizations, directing a Peace Corps country program, and serving as a consultant for such agencies as USAID, UNDP, and the World Bank. On the basis of this extensive and varied experience, he has become an outspoken critic of what he terms the "international poverty alleviation industry." He believes that efforts to reduce world poverty have been well-intentioned but largely ineffective. On the whole, the development industry has failed to serve the needs of the people it has sought to help. To make his case, Dichter reviews the major trends in development assistance from the 1960s through the 1990s, illustrating his analysis with eighteen short stories based on his own experiences in the field. The analytic chapters are thus grounded in the daily life of development workers as described in the stories. Dichter shows how development organizations have often become caught up in their own self-perpetuation and in public relations efforts designed to create an illusion of effectiveness. Tracing the evolution of the role of money (as opposed to ideas) in development assistance, he suggests how financial imperatives have reinforced the tendency to sponsor time-bound projects, creating a dependency among aid recipients. He also examines the rise of careerism and increased bureaucratization in the industry, arguing that assistance efforts have become disconnected from important lessons learned on the ground, and often lessons of world history. |
| Subject |
Economic assistance -- Developing countries -- Evaluation.
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Poverty -- Developing countries.
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Economic assistance -- Evaluation. (OCoLC)fst00901598
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Poverty. (OCoLC)fst01074093
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Developing countries. (OCoLC)fst01242969
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Bewertung. (DE-588)4006340-9
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Entwicklungshilfe. (DE-588)4014948-1
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Ontwikkelingssamenwerking.
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Armoede.
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Entwicklungshilfe.
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Bewertung.
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| Other Form: |
Online version: Dichter, Thomas W. Despite good intentions. Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 2003 (OCoLC)647376217 |
| ISBN |
1558493921 (cloth ; alk. paper) |
|
9781558493926 (cloth ; alk. paper) |
|
155849393X (pbk. ; alk. paper) |
|
9781558493933 (pbk. ; alk. paper) |
| Standard No. |
9781558493933 |
|
99805972442 |
|
