Development Practitioners Speak Out: Aid In The New Millennium

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2-1-2014

Published In

PsycCRITIQUES

Abstract

Reviews the book, Aid, NGOs and the Realities of Women's Lives: A Perfect Storm edited by Tina Wallace, Fenella Porter, and Mark Ralph-Bowman. This book brings together essays written by experienced practitioners and theorists in the field of international aid. Intended primarily for development professionals, the book has two sections, along with an introduction and postscript. The first section contains eight essays that sound an alarm about current trends in the international development or aid sector. In the contributors’ view, these trends constitute a “perfect storm”—a confluence of negative conditions that have led to nothing short of a calamity. The second section offers eight accounts of projects that have resisted these trends. Overall, this book offers an accessible and politically astute introduction to the current state of international development policy and practice. It challenges readers to think critically about how neoliberal ideologies inflect international development (and human services more generally), about development managerialism, and about the unacknowledged pitfalls of the current rush to empower girls and women.

Comments

This work is a review of "Aid, NGOs And The Realities Of Women's Lives: A Perfect Storm" edited by T. Wallace, F. Porter, and M. Ralph-Bowman.

Reprinted in: (2014). Psychology International Newsletter.

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