Why, after 30 years of aid, are so many African countries no better off than they were at independence? Why, indeed, are many of them actually slipping back and earlier economic achievements being steadily undermined?

Concentrating on Sudan, James Morton examines what has gone wrong and why aid has so often been ineffective and even counter-productive. He argues that it is incorrect to pin the blame simply on incompetent decision-making by donors or recipients, on environmental and climatic conditions, or on civil strife.

Instead, it should be recognized that the success or failure of an aid or development programme is essentially related to aspects of political economy, and that attention to factors like sovereignty and accountability is as crucial as rigorous scientific and technical evaluation. Moreover, considerable periods of time and study in an area are a prerequisite for any achievement.

Morton's argument implies that unless these factors are taken into account, even the most democratic grassroots approach to development will fail.

Morton's solutions are radical and spring from an intimate knowledge of the problems of giving aid to rural communities. He considers such measures as the ending of all except emergency aid to allow unimpeded economic development, and in some cases the direct transfer of funds to recipients. Above all, aid and development are regarded as aid enabling process: to help rural communities to do what they often understand better than the international aid community.

Morton's analysis in The Poverty of Nations is based on his long experience as a development economist in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and his criticism of the various approaches tried in the past makes this book a powerful and timely contribution to debates on development.