Book Notes
Book Notes
Book Notes gives short descriptions of recently published books, papers and reports on all sub-jects relevant to the environment and development but with a particular interest in urban issues in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Pri-ority is given to items produced by research groups and NGOs from these regions. Send us a copy of any publication you would like included in Eng-lish, Spanish, French or Portuguese. Enclose de-tails on costs for those ordering from abroad and how payment should be made.
The Book Notes in this issue are grouped under the following headings:
1. Aid
11. Community action
Evictions
IV. Gender
V. Healthy cities
VI. Housing
VII. Participation
VIII. Poverty reduction
IX. Rural-urban linkages
X. Sustainable development
XI. Urban urban change
urban environment
urban food security and agriculture
urban governance
urban infrastructure
urban waste
XII. Journal profile: Waterlines
I. AID
The Reality of Aid: An Independent Review of Poverty Reduction and Development Assistance
Judith Randel, and Tony German (editors), 1998. 260 pages. Published by Earthscan. London and available from bookstores or direct from Earthscan Publications. 120 Pentonville Road. London N1 9JN. UK: e-mail: earthinfo@ earthscan.co.uk: price: UK£ 14.95.
THIS IS THE sixth edition of this annual analysis of the aid and development policies of the world’s donor nations. An examina-tion of 1997 trends indicates that interna-tional assistance has continued to decline
and that donor nations are stronger in of-fering commitments than in actually produc-ing resources. The editors point to the irony of the situation: at a time when govern-ments increasingly acknowledge that it is possible to end poverty, their aid to the poor-est countries is at its lowest level in a dec-ade. During one week in December 1997. donors managed to pledge US$ 57 billion to bail out South Korea yet they have failed to come up with the additional US$ 20 billion a year considered necessary to lift more than 1 billion people out of poverty. This year’s edition looks for the first time at the “fair share” of bilateral assistance for basic so-cial services that should come from each country, based on the overall amount calcu-lated as being necessary to meet the goal of universal access. Only Sweden and Norway are spending their share of the burden.
The assessment of current trends is fol-lowed by a report on each aid donor, pre-pared in each case by an NGO within the donor country. These reports look at overall performance relative to other donor coun-tries, and focus especially this year on aid to basic education. The following section considers the perspective of a range of South-ern countries on developinent cooperation. again prepared by a national NGO, and fo-cusing especially on basic education.
The volume concludes with “at a glance” comparisons of donor performance and com-mitments for the twenty-first century, with a reference and resource section. The text is illustrated throughout with clear diagrams and graphs, and with boxes and tables of-fering further detail.
II. COMMUNITY ACTION
Community Initiatives: Four Case Studies from Karachi
Arif Hasan, (editor), 1998. 181 pages. ISBN: 969 8380 108. Published by and available from City Press, A-16, Safari Heights, Block 15,
Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 11, No. 1, April 1999
277