The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

This book has lots of really interesting points, in particular about the various traps that poor countries can fall into. I especially liked that this book described the problem as well as the solution (I feel like many other books accurately illustrate what is wrong with these countries, but not how to solve these problems). The author also uses many examples to back up his points, which gives real-life examples to go with the theory.Sadly, I’ve noticed that the book repeats many of the same points. This basically means that each chapter can essentially be filtered down to about a page of new information. Although some points are new to me, I find that a lot of the text is very very basic (for example, it’s obvious that many of these governments are corrupt, or that not 100% of aid is spent wisely, or that civil wars harm a country’s economic growth, or that landlocked countries find it more expensive to export) - you’d be much better off reading a summary of this book online, and instead spending those hours saved reading something else. That’s not to say that this book is completely useless, but I definitely do feel like the authors have a very simplified understanding of the problems with the Bottom Billion: most of this stuff is common knowledge! The writer also alludes to various “research” that they have done, but fails to give an accurate description of how he has gone about doing this (the phrase “our research has discovered that ....” is common throughout, but as a reader I’ve got no idea what this research actually involved).In retrospect, I definitely regret this purchase. Instead, I could’ve spent the hours saved on something much more productive. For those who want a proper understanding of what causes poverty, I thoroughly recommend Poor Economics.

This book should be essential reading for anyone studying African development. I read th whole thing is about 3 sitting. It provides an explanation as to why the countries that hits the bottom billion to the world poor are not their state and what they can do about it. The book draws on so much expertise and experience. It a really convincing read. The point that could be challenged now in 2019 has been raise by Andy Summers of kings college who argues that the, nunerically speaking, most of the world's poor now live in what could be called middle-income countries ( India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa) so the problems with their property is not necessarily being in one of collier's traps, but not prioritizung poverty reduction or developing proper strategies to distribute their income to reduce poverty. Why should India, which has the largest proportion of the poor people, have a space programme?Collier's book is excellent read.

In my work over the last few years, struggling with the issues of development and poverty reduction, and I read a lot of books on the issues. Recently, I read one of the best books in the form of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion.Just as Mr. Collier says at the end of his book, discussions on poverty and development have over the last few years been dominated by two extremes: On the one extreme Mr. Jeffrey Sachs call for more aid to "end poverty", and on the other side, William Easterly's negativity that nothing really works (in the books The End of Poverty and The White Man's Burden, respectively).Mr. Collier strikes a marvelous and necessary balance between these two. On one side, he says about Mr. Sachs:"At present the clarion call for the left is Jeffrey Sach's book the end of poverty. Much as I agree with Sachs' passionate call to action, I think that he has overplayed the importance of aid. Aid alone will not solve the problems of the bottom billion - we need to use a wider range of policies."Mr. Sachs is an advocate of more money will solve the problems, but as Mr. Collier puts well in the book, many of the problems related to poverty are structural, from lack of investement, infrastructure, education, conflict, to being landlocked. Some of these problems are not solved just with more money. Unfortunately, this is a tendency in development aid nowadays, perhaps as aid agencies and staff need to justify their existence, even increase it: the need of more money, much of it in the form of budgetary support, which goes directly to a poor country's budget, in ever bigger amounts. But the link to poverty reduction is awkward to say the least: as pointed out in both Easterly's and Collier's book, higher dependence on foreign aid hardly leads to poverty reduction.How much did I see this in Mozambique: had any of the subsistence farmers I worked with ever benefitted from the Agricultural SWAp...?Nevertheless, while one cannot argue that aid will help everything, one can not jump into the other side of "Nothing helps" like the old disillusioned Mr. Easterly does (in my personal view Mr. Easterly is the kind of person who would have let slavery continue, not because he agreed with it, but because "we cannot do anything about it"):"At present the clarion call for the right is economist William Easterly's book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is right to mock the delusions of the aid lobby. But just as Sachs exaggerates the payoff to aid, Easterly exaggerates the downside and again neglects the scope for other policies. We are not as impotent and ignorant as Easterly seems to think."As Collier amply argues for, there are many situations and examples that aid has helped and alleviated poverty. But as Mr. Collier also amply discusses and argues for, the aid money needs to be allocated in a well-planned way, and not ignoring the context: aid alone is unlikely to help.I must admit that at first I found the book to start really slowly: Mr. Collier took time to explain his framework for analysis, ennumerating four "traps" which developing countries, or rather, the "bottom billion", the poorest of the poorest caught in a vicious circle of misery of landlockedness, resource trap, conflict and bad governance. These four traps are inter-related and Mr. Collier carefully presents his huge array of statistics to present his argument.This part was a somewhat tedious read, but after passing this part, the book moves into more interesting areas, namely what can be done about it, the huge dilemmas and difficulties surrounding these issues.Nevertheless, on a more critical view, the book's argument is built too much on statistics. It makes it powerful, but at the same time one can feel that the argumentation, like with all statistics, is political and absolutist: in social sciences, there are exceptions to all statistics! At the same time, some of the correlations, like for instance between post-conflict situations and democracy, seem so vague that I would never look at a specific situation with that data, but only focus on the context.Personally, I like that he says it can be done - too often in the world people say: "there have always been poor people, and there always will be". While I don't deny this is true, I find it appalling that this should be used as an excuse: we have always had murders, rape, wars, but nobody in their right mind would say we should do nothing about it!I like the book, because we finally have a well-written balance abut development aid, something that has been missing for a while as the issue is discussed more and more.

Great book. Any book from SOAS uni is always worth reading imo.For anyone studying economics these types of books are a must read.The richest resourced countries in the world, are always amongst the worlds poorest countries on earth. This doesnt happen by mistake. This is the curse of having something that another people want to take/steal from you.Definately worth a read, whether you want to have a more realistic grasp of how economics function in real world scenarios, or if you just want to find answers to the age old question of 'why are some countries so poor'

Very good and very intersting postion. Prof Collier is experienced and knowledgeable professional so the book by him must be full of interesting facts. And in this respect I fully recommend it: great read. However it seems to me thta professor's judgemnt is at times clouded by his opinions and believes. It's not difficult to notice that he is a firm believer of power of free trade and capitailsm to solve all our problems. The book apparently proves it. I've just finished it and can't see it. Bits about NGOs and comments about their alleged marxism annoyed me quite a lot (this doesn't mean NGOs work well) as they're simply not needed. Also professor suggests that salvation for the bottom billion countries lies solely in capitalists activity and free trade which I disagree with (and yes, I could provide some arguments).On the other hand there are some really great ideas and NGOs certainly should familiarize themselves with this book, so should people responsible for development in governments.