Click here to download an order form for Benny Dembitzer's new book: "The Attack on World Poverty"
Price per copy; £12.95, post free for order in the UK
"A masterful synthesis of
the current issues of world poverty and development, a blistering indictment
of our failure to get to grips with them, and an incisive exploration
of what can be done to begin to bring about real change."
Monica Ali, writer
"The author is surely right
on three main issues that he raises in this book. Firstly, that there
are no universal solutions to the issues of fighting world poverty; all
problems are local and solutions must therefore be local, backed by appropriate
international support.
Secondly, that the main participants in the debate on world development
and economic growth have taken their eyes off the ball of assuring the
survival of the poorest, by meeting their basic needs. Thirdly, that given
the current state of the global economy, things will get much worse before
they get any better. I know that he speaks with great personal experience
and knowledge and commend him for his common-sense approach."
Timothy T. Thahane, former Vice President and Secretary of the
World Bank and currently Minister of Finance and Development Planing in
Lesotho
"An important contribution
to the aid and development debate. Full of fascinating information and
insights. It should make all participants in the debate sit up and think."
William Keegan CBE, Senior economic commentator, the Observer.
"It is a really important, engaging and stimulating book; it both
needs to be published and debated. I really appreciated the blend of seasoned
observation and grasp of macroeconomics. Your clear eyed understanding
of what sham government in the poorest countries represents; the single
issue and wrong headed charity and NGO activity; the three very basic
wants that the truly impoverished require to be met, all these themes
come through loud and clear. I was interested in your grassroots level
proposals for assisted investment."
Maggie Brown, media commentator and writer for the Guardian.
'This is an important contribution to the development debate, written
by someone who has huge experience as a thinker and practitioner around
these issues. His general thesis is that there is a real risk that the
significant gains which we have seen in the past decade or two are at
risk - from the economic downturn, from climate change and from population
growth. You will not agree with everything in it; I hazard a guess that
Mr Dembitzer would be disappointed if you did. But it does what a good
book should do - it makes you think'.
Myles Wickstead, Visiting Professor (International Relations),
Open University, and former Head of Secretariat, Commission for Africa
"I think the setting out of
the problem is masterly. The prose is powerful, concise, clear. [The book]
tackles complicated issues with great simplicity and force. I am not sure
that I can agree with [its] conclusions, for how can one do anything without
having governing elites on side? Will they not find new ways of stealing
from or suppressing the small communities that you want to encourage?
It seems to me that we need a much tougher international regime (I have
no idea how it could be done) that (a) forces the rich world to abandon
its wicked subsidisations and (b) allows the poor world--Africa mostly--some
protectionism, but on condition of closely watched and effectively sanctioned
improvements in governance. A hopeless proposition of course. So I end
rather depressed, but you have outlined some very practical steps that
people of good will, and there are millions of them, could take to start
improving the situation in the immediate future."
Professor John Lonsdale, Emeritus Professor*of Modern African History
and fellow of Trinity College Cambridge.
"A
personal inquiry into world poverty by someone of unusually wide experience
with stimulating ideas for a less bleak future."
Johnny Grimond, writer-at-large and former Foreign Editor of the
Economist
"It
is difficult to agree with the whole of the book's thesis. Things are
getting better in Africa and all change is slow. But at the same time
the author does understand poverty at the level where it matters and many
of his comments and deductions are correct both in theory and in practice.
To me the book raises the basic questions that need urgently to be addressed;
how will African leaders confront the growing challenges? how will the
leaders of the rich world face up to the harm that has been caused to
many fragile economies in the past and continues to this day? I would
strongly recommend the book as essential readings for the activists who
supported the MAKE POVERTY HISTORY campaign in 2005."
Dr Adotey Bing Pappoe, Consultant to NEPAD and former Director
of the Africa centre, London