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Title: A Case for Aid: Building Consensus for Development Assistance by James D. Wolfensohn, Nicholas Stern, United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, Roger D. Cowe ISBN: 0-8213-5162-1 Publisher: World Bank Pub. Date: August, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Well-Informed and Hopeful View of International Development
Comment: This book by the World Bank indicates how dramatic and lasting the progress against global poverty has been in the past 50 years. It also shows how dramatically the Bank's own understanding has risen, even in the past decade, of how to make its efforts more effective in relieving poverty and achieving other development goals. These two themes form the basis for the World Bank's visionary thesis: that eradicating much of the poverty, ill health, and illiteracy around the world is within reach.

The World Bank is full of optimism. Then again, it shows good reason for this outlook. It outlines the substantial advances that have been made over the past few decades in poverty reduction and advances in health and education in the developing world, identifying the World Bank's role in these advances, as one component of a complex, cooperative effort. For instance, the Bank indicates that:
•Over the past 40 years, life expectancy at birth in developing countries has increased by 20 years - about as much as was achieved in all of human history prior to the middle of the 20th century.
•Over the past 30 years, illiteracy in the developing world has been cut nearly in half, from 47 percent to 25 percent in adults.
•Over the past 20 years, the absolute number of people living on less than $1 a day, after rising steadily for the last 200 years, has for the first time begun to fall, even as the world's population has grown by 1.6 billion people.

The book's main message is that foreign development aid is reaching a level of sophistication that translates into dramatic improvements in the human condition like never before. This aid is lifting people out of poverty, improving their health and education, and contributing to the stability and security of the entire world. As the book says, "Aid is not simply a transfer payment for the consumption of poor people, but an investment in improved policies and institutions. The best aid finances the costs of change, rather than the costs of not changing."

The Bank's vision is grand and inspiring. This is far more than a financial treatise; it is instead a bold blueprint for raising the human condition throughout the globe. With such reach, it touches on much of the agenda for foreign affairs, and makes for compelling reading for anyone concerned with international relations. As the Bank aspires, "we must make globalization stand for common humanity, not for commercial brands or competitive advantage."