The ROAD TO HELL

Rating:
Summary: Sensationalistic and sloppy
Review: As an international aid worker and former Peace Corps volunteer, I was hoping for objective and well-researched criticism of international aid programs. Wrong book. The majority of this book is based on the author's personal experiences and anecdotal experiences of others with a couple of specific aid agencies, which are hardly indicative of the "aid industry" as a whole. The writing was amateurish and the facts so slanted and incomplete that I struggled to finish the book.

No aid worker believes that there isn't corruption or incompetence in the field - it's like any other profession in that respect. Maren frequently characterizes aid workers as cowboys who are in it for the money or twenty-five year olds in 4x4s. Working in post-conflict situations is extremely challenging - logistically, mentally, and emotionally. Hard choices and compromises need to be made. But Maren isn't interested in portraying the challenges - he's got an agenda and an axe to grind and he won't let facts or research get in his way.

If you want a more thoughtful and interesting but equally critical portrait of Peace Corps life, I strongly recommend George Packer's "The Village of Waiting" over this book. This book is more of a memoir than journalism, although it's presented as the latter.

Rating:
Summary: Maren extrapolates a bit from limited experience in Somalia.
Review: Maren does a good job of smearing the UN system, US foreign policy directions, and corrupt officials of the developing world. He does less well when it comes to the private international aid organizations, whose evisceration seems to be his primary aim.

He targets mainly CARE and Save the Children, two vastly different organizations. The blunders and witting or unwitting contributions to the problems of Somalia made by CARE and the other large NGOs are not in the same category as the problems associated with sponsorship.

He should probably have trained his sights more carefully on one or the other problem. Instead we get a scattershot denunciation of all attempts at aid, as patronizing, self-serving, and ultimately destructive.

Some of the 'facts' he uses to support his case are patently flawed--especially his discussion of the PL480 program and his definitions of Title I, Title II and Title III. This may be academic, but these mistakes undermine some of his broader points.

Finally, while I agree most wholeheartedly about the apathy and ignorance--bordering on criminal neglect--which is rife within the UN system, I think his tar-brush is a bit too ambitious when it comes to the overall picture of international aid.

I fully support his recommendation, at the end of the penultimate chapter, that an independent body be established to accredit organizations who are actually doing good, and to channel donors toward them as the most hopeful targets of resources. My fear is that probably the largest organizations in existence today wouldn't make the list, and some of the smaller, more professional ones, when injected with so much donor capital, will become bloated and ineffective, much as the big ones are today.

Rating:
Summary: More harm than good
Review: There are very few books that can claim to fundamentally change the way you see the world; this is one of them. Michael Maren brutally exposes the hypocrisy, corruption and inefficiency that will destroy forever the reader's attitude about foreign aid and charitable work overseas. A reader who wants to retain his belief in the myth that the billions of dollars we spend on foreign aid actually benefit the poor and starving of the world should NOT read this book - it will shatter your illusions forever. After reading about how aid to Third World countries ends up perpetuating the very conditions it is supposed to eradicate, how it enriches the corrupt elites of those countries and helps them consolidate their often violently dictatorial rule, and how a surprisingly large proportion of it ends up in the pockets of those actually running the charities, it becomes clear that foreign aid and charity to the Third World is part of the problem rather than the solution.