Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #308292 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-29
• Released on: 2007-05-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781403976512
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
It isn't the legacy of the slave trade or colonialism, or the supposed inequities of globalization and world trade, that are to blame for Africa's travails, argues this stimulating contrarian essay. The author insists that Africa's problems are largely of its own making, the product of dictatorial, kleptocratic governments; rampant corruption; economic policies that hobble agriculture, discourage private investment and strangle new businesses with red tape; and a cultural fatalism that inures Africans to misery. Calderisi draws on his experience as a World Bank official in Africa, peppering his analysis with personal anecdotes about Africa's callous, venal officialdom and misguided economic policies. He offers a muted defense of World Bank policies, but also decries Western "political correctness" in indulging Africa's dysfunctions and calls for a new tough-love approach to foreign aid. Assistance to most countries, he contends, should be cut in half and conditioned on thorough democratic reforms and strict oversight by Western donors; responsible governments—he lists Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Mali—should get a large increase in aid with few strings attached. Calderisi's focus on Africa's internal faults and his somewhat essentialist musings on the "African character" will stir controversy, but his cogent argument is an important addition to the conversation over Africa's future. (Mar. 9)
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Review
"'... boisterous, entertaining and highly accessible. [Calderisi] challenges the shibboleths of the aid industry with courage, compassion and humour. A timely and bracing read.' Michela Wrong, author of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz 'This is a timely, intriguing and provocative book.' Baroness Lynda Chalker, former Minister of Overseas Development for the United Kingdom 'The Trouble with Africa is a blast of fresh air over a continent that has for decades been suffocating under a blanket of well meant concern, ineffectual at best, and harmful at worst.' Michael Holman, former Africa editor, Financial Times"

Review

Customer Reviews

a few insights and some great stories mixed with sloppy analysis
Calderisi states early on that this book is "a personal essay." That turns out to be code for "This doesn't have to be particularly coherent, nor do I have to back up my recommendations with systematic evidence." Finally, the writing is not particularly inviting, with lines like, "unlike photographs, economies cannot be developed in a dark room" (p. 171) or "Africa has been in my blood since the age of fifteen" (p. 35).

However, Amartya Sen once wrote that "there is a strong case for judging a book by its best contributions, not its weakest points." [1] Calderisi worked for the World Bank in Africa for many years: he has many interesting stories and a great deal of perspective. He gives the World Bank's perspective on the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, the now notorious Structural Adjustment Programs of the 1980s, and many more personal stories. While there is certainly more to these stories than the Bank's perspective, understanding the Bank's reasoning is insightful.

In addition to these stories and perspectives, the author makes ten recommendations, many of them unfortunately unsupported by the body of the book. Most of the recommendations seem sensible (as do many recommendations that haven't worked, as William Easterly has indicated [2]), but Calderisi gives no detail as to how one would implement them nor does he successfully build up to them. I may not be confident that Jeffrey Sachs's plan [3] would be successful, but I give him credit for having thought it through and outlined it in significant technical detail.

The book begins much worse than it ends. In the first chapter, "Looking for Excuses," the author argues that many traditional arguments for African poverty are false; but the reasoning tends to be specious. Speaking of both the Cold War and colonialism, he argues that it is difficult to make the link between those events and Africa's problems, but then he attributes clear causality to what he calls the "benefits" of the Cold War and colonialism: it's not clear how we know that they caused benefits but not that they caused problems. In his argument that the manipulation of African peoples by Cold War movers is not responsible, he says, "there is little evidence that the superpowers did more damage than African states themselves." Even if they did the same amount of damage, that would be double the damage African countries would have done on their own. Elsewhere in the book, Calderisi relies on a few select quotes to demonstrate that every month in recent African history is "replete with tyranny and injustice" (p. 63). True or untrue, a statement like that deserves a decent standard of evidence.

I'm not sorry that I read this book, but I'd recommend you put William Easterly's White Man's Burden and Jeffrey Sachs's The End of Poverty higher on your list.

[1] Amartya Sen, "The Man Without a Plan," Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006.
[2] William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth, MIT Press, 2002.
[3] Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, Penguin, 2006.

A thoughtful, wonderfully written memoir, brimming with insights
As a colleague and friend of Robert Calderisi, I looked forward to this book. He has written a skillful and comprehensive account of the issues, people, politics and economics of post-Independence Africa, from his vantage point of several assignments in various parts of the continent. He weaves his personal experiences with the African people and their leaders with carefully selected historical background needed to understand why things were bound to happen as they did. This book is hard to put down, and the human and political stories and the economics are told with care, and with humor. He was there, you are, too.

There is more than enough blame to go around, and Calderisi presents a balanced and, at times, embarrassing account of the excesses on all sides: the elites running these countries, the donors who came to help, and, in the chapter on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, the foreign investors who sought alliances in the name of profit. His abiding respect and admiration for Africans comes through loud and clear, as does his distaste for their self-absorbed and often kleptocratic leaders. His recommendations for how Africans themselves must turn things around appear bolted to his readable and, very often, entertaining text, but they will stimulate the thoughtful aid practitioner or friend of Africa to think about how that might take place.

While Calderisi's book will not satisfy the reader seeking deep history (try Guy Arnold's impressive new "Africa: A modern history") rigorous economics, a call to arms (Jeff Sachs tried that in his "The end of poverty") or blame-mongering against NGOs, donors and corrupt elites, it is an excellent introduction to why Africa is the way it is, and why it deserves our help as the development challenge of the early 21st century.

Finally - An Assessment that Faces Facts!
Every 12 hours the same number killed at the WTC perish from AIDS in Africa, which has 2/3 of the world's cases. In a year 150,000 die giving birth, It is the only region of the world with regular savage wars, and the only continent that has grown steadily poorer over the last 30 year - between '70 and '00 Africa lost half its share of world markets to other developing nations. Over 50% of its population is under eighteen. Finally, making improvement even more difficult, at least 70,000 skilled graduates leave every year.

Calderisi believes most of Africa's misfortunes are self-imposed through mismanagement and destructive values. He points out that half the world's aid has gone to Africa lately. (Yet, to protect its farmers, the EU also spends $350 billion/year - 14X aid given to all of Africa and equal to its annual income - thereby damaging its farmers and helping cause economic problems.)

Calderisi rejects each of the traditional explanations for Africa's poverty. He begins by pointing out that despite racism and poverty, most slaves' descendants in the West lead better lives than those remaining in Africa. As for colonialism, there is practically no country or civilization which was not someone else's colony at some point; an often overlooked point is that Africa has benefited from colonizers' new technology, education, and ideas. "The Trouble with Africa" agrees that the Cold War did bring problems to Africa, but also points out that it only involved four nations. As for its debt burden - in '98 Western nations wrote off $50 billion in African debt, nearly as much as the World Bank loaned it in the prior 50 years, and in '05 another $40 billion was canceled.

Having few deep-water ports and too many countries (48 south of the Sahara, 22 of which have less than ten million people) are problems that Calderisi believes limit Africa. However, his major point is that no other continent has experienced such prolonged dictatorships - eg. Gabon (39 years), Togo (37), and four others over 20 years. Associated with this is the fact that in most of Africa no one is safe.

Half of all Africans live in four countries - Nigeria (127 million), Ethiopia (64), Democratic Republic of Congo (51), and South Africa (43).

Major negative values include the fact that if someone succeeds, however, modestly, relatives will often insist on sharing the fruits; further, they are not savers - such behavior is often considered traitorous to their families. Use of leadership for personal advantage is accepted, even expected - for example, class sizes frequently run to 150-200 because of fund diversion. Most uneducated Africans are fatalistic - simply accepting bad outcomes. Another problem is that culprits are seldom punished, though Calderisi offers no data to support this point. Finally, high exchange rates, taxes, and local content requirements further impair Africa's progress.

Calderisi' Recommendations: Install mechanisms for tracing and recovering public funds. Require all heads of state and senior officials to open their bank accounts to public scrutiny. Cut direct aid in half, allowing greater oversight - saved monies could be used for general programs, though what this means was not made clear. Focus aid on the 4-5 nations serious about reducing poverty, and impose much fewer restrictions. Require all countries to hold internationally-supervised elections. Promote a free press and independent judiciary. Supervise the running of Africa's schools and AIDS programs to prevent diversions. Finally, combine the World Bank, IMF, and U.N. Development Program to eliminate duplication and working at cross-purposes.

"The Trouble with Africa" makes valuable points - obviously something is seriously wrong for the continent to remain so backward for so long. However, the book would be greatly improved with greater quantification, detail, and documentation. For example, give a credible estimation of how much AIDS and education funding is wasted/diverted, and how this occurs. I also would have liked detail on why there are so many horrible civil wars within Africa.