Peter Griffiths

The Economist's Tale

A Consultant Encounters Hunger and the World Bank

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

What really happens when the World Bank imposes its policies on a country? This is an insider's view of one aid-made crisis. Peter Griffiths was at the interface between government and the Bank. In this ruthlessly honest, day by day account of a mission he undertook in Sierra Leone, he uses his diary to tell the story of how the World Bank, obsessed with the free market, imposed a secret agreement on the government, banning all government food imports or subsidies. The collapsing economy meant that the private sector would not import. Famine loomed. No ministry, no state marketing organization, no aid organization could reverse the agreement. It had to be a top-level government decision, whether Sierra Leone could afford to annoy minor World Bank officials. This is a rare and important portrait of the aid world which insiders will recognize, but of which the general public seldom get a glimpse.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury Academic
• Seitenzahl: 272
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Mai 2003
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 219mm x 135mm x 21mm
• Gewicht: 295g
• ISBN-13: 9781842771853
• ISBN-10: 184277185X
• Artikelnr.: 21585350

Autorenporträt

Peter Griffiths

Inhaltsangabe

1. Foreword: Is the Story True? 2. The Task Ahead 3. Meeting the Minister
4. The Expats 5. Meeting the Officials 6. The Casablanca 7. Exchange Rates
8. The United Nations 9. Doing Business in Freetown 10. Finding the Facts
11. The Casablanca 12. The Weekend 13. In the Markets 14. Vanishing Rice
15. Military Coups 16. Planning My Expedition 17. Alarm at the World Bank
18. Into the Interior 19. Visiting the Projects 20. The Resthouse 21. More
Projects 22. The University 23. Trekking On 24. Finding the Facts 25. The
Southern Province 26. Colonialism 27. Home Again 28. Financing the System
29. What Happened to the Money? 30. Freetown 31. Getting Information 32.
How Civil Servants Survive 33. Trickle Down 34. How Much Food is There? 35.
The World Bank Reform 36. Cash Flow Problems 37. The Agricultural Marketing
Board 38. Of Coups and Rumours of Coups 39. How Much Rice is Imported? 40.
Who Will Import? 41. How Do I Get Action? 42. The Casablanca 43. Cabinet
Paper 44. Getting it to the Decision Makers 45. Handing It Over 46. On Trek
Again 47. Mother Theresa 48. Waiting For Action 49. The Marketing Board 50.
A Sundowner 51. Revisiting the Importers 52. A Second Cabinet Paper 53.
Dishonest Expatriates 54. Alerting the World Food Programme 55. Breaking
the Rules 56. The Showdown 57. And Then What?