How the Aid Industry Works

"A social policy specialist with extensive academic and practitioner experience in the aid area, de Haan has a real talent for encapsulating large and complex topics in the span of a few pages and therefore manages to achieve near-comprehensive treatment within the covers of a modest-sized book. He is scrupulous in presenting all sides of an argument and succeeds in his desire to be as neutral as possible on the many controversies surrounding the subject."
In a field dominated by one-sided pro- or anti-aid polemics, Arjan de Haan adds some much-needed substance by setting out the nuts and bolts of how aid actually works. Although a practitioner himself, he summarizes the pitfalls and failures of aid as well as its successes. For any student considering a career in the aid industry, or merely writing an essay on it, this combination of literature review, analysis and hands-on experience provides an invaluable introduction.
In a field littered with hyper-optimism and hyper-pessimism about aid as a weapon to end global poverty, this is a much welcome volume that goes beyond whether aid works to help understand how the aid industry works. Written by an insider, it tells us the complex realities of the development challenge and what external inputs can contribute as well as the perverse impacts they may have. These are insights that are essential to going beyond whether aid works to how it can be made to work. This is a must read before anyone forms an opinion."