The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity [Paperback]

Michael Maren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

Current Affairs

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Before you mail another check to Save the Children or join the Peace Corps, read this book. Michael Maren shows that the international aid industry is a big business more concerned with winning its next big government contract than helping needy people. The problem isn't a lack of charity missions in the Third World, but that the best intentions of these idealists are often inadvertently destructive, thanks to a deadly combination of their naiveté and the willingness of native elites to exploit them. Maren spent many years in Africa living this life. This is a splendid, literate, muckraking memoir of his experiences. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Despite the overstated title, this book is a forceful and disturbing portrait of Western intervention in Somalia, plus an investigation of underscrutinized aid foundations. Perhaps because of the book's ambition, Maren's narrative is disjointed, but readers will find it worth the effort. "[D]oing relief and development work in the context of oppression is counterproductive," he asserts, and his personal experience in Somalia, where, after a Peace Corps stint in Kenya, he returned as an aid worker and journalist, bears this out. While the Cold War fueled aid to Somalia, much of the aid was channeled by local power brokers to further their own ends. Indeed, while Somalia was once self-sufficient, it is now chronically dependent on imports of foreign food. Maren is equally scathing about prominent charities such as CARE and Save the Children, which he terms mercenaries more concerned with self-perpetuation than actual famine relief. CARE, he charges, once shipped food to armed fighters in Somalia, while Save the Children "projects don't work." His portrait of the aid biz emphasizes that it is driven mainly by grain-trading companies eager to unload excess capacity, even as their advertisements feature starving victims. Maren's brief report from Rwanda suggests that there, too, aid is falling into the wrong hands and thus financing a war. Maren maintains that journalists are too dependent on such aid organizations to properly evaluate them, and he proposes that an independent agency be established for that purpose.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Original edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743227867
• ISBN-13: 978-0743227865
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #391,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > International

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Written with passion and accuracy, July 26, 2003

By 

Tom Munro "tomfrombrunswick" (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity (Paperback)

This is an angry book that has been written with considerable passion. The author worked in Somalia for some time and later became a journalist. In that capacity he has followed the history of the area and the collapse of Somalia as a state. The book is about Somalia and it is about how foreign aid made things worse.

The book is to some extent journalist and fragmented. It looks at the stories of different characters. One Chis Cassidy for instance was an aid worker who headed a project to irrigate some land. He has to battle rampant corruption, the incredibly poor planning of the project and continual attempts to undermine it. In the end despite his talent and passion for the job he fails and the money put into the project is simply lost. Millions and dollars whose only achievement is to enrich some aid workers and government officials. Cassidy is a tragic case and in the end he leaves Africa after one of his children is murdered to warn him off.

The book also looks at how private charity works. How much of it goes to the charity organisation and how little to the target population. What aid that does go to the target population is so poorly distributed it achieves nothing.

The main work of the book is to look at the overall situation in Somalia and the mechanics of aid. The story which was revealed to the public was that due to a war between Somalia and Ethiopia large numbers of ethic Somalias had been forced to flee from their homes and were starving in refugee camps. As a result international agencies sent in huge amounts of food. The author reveals how the crisis was engineered by the then corrupt Somali government. That the numbers of refugees was at all times exaggerated. That the motive of the government in creating the crisis was to be able to steal large amounts of the food aid and to make money out of selling it. That the image of starving refugees was created by photographing children who were victims of dysentery and other diseases rather than facing starvation. How the importation of food distorted the economy and broke apart the relationships which used to keep Somalia to some extent a unified society.

The book is a devestating portrait of how flawed the aid industry is and the sorts of reasons why it is useless. It is also an interesting book to read along side Black Hawk down the recently released popular history of the military adventure which went so badly wrong. This book provides the political background to understand how flawed that entire mission was. A worthwhile book to read but one that it gripping like a novel and hard to put down.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Road to Hell leads to American grain merchants, November 10, 2004

By 

Alice Friedemann (Oakland, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity (Hardcover)

Michael Maren began his journey to Africa as a Peace Corps worker. His first introduction to corruption occurred when school construction materials he obtained were diverted to add new rooms to local officials homes. But this was nothing compared to what is revealed in the rest of the book.

Basically, when we provide food to African nations, much of it is stolen and used to build the wealth and power of whatever dictator is ruling at the time. Efforts to help local people grow their own food are often stopped, because the power base of the dictator would be reduced if people could grow their own food rather than depending on the dictator to provide it.

The resulting suffering, wars, and corruption cannot be blamed entirely on evil African dictators. In fact, if I were to apportion blame based on the material in this book, most of it would fall on American grain merchants and the politicians who aid them. And some of the blame goes to the aid agencies who know this is the way the game is played, and say nothing so they can have a small piece of the corruption pie.

American farmers see a pittance of the money made by the excess grain they grow. When extra grain is sent to foreign nations, or bought with Food Stamps in America, it's the American taxpayer and farmers who lose out. Who does get rich? The money goes into the pockets of corporations like A. C. Toepfer, Continental Grain, Interstate Grain, Cargill, Ferruzzi Trading, Matsui, Richo Grain Limited, Archer Daniels Midland, Louis Drefus, and Mitsubishi (page 191).

These corporate parasites continue to suck on the public wealth by promoting ethanol, which according to the Department of Energy, takes more energy to make than it contains (see Chapter 11, Pigs at a Trough or Patzek "Ethanol from Corn: Clean Renewable Fuel for the Future, or Drain on Our Resources and Pockets?" www.wcpn.org/news/2003/07-09/images/ethanol/EthanolFromCorn.pdf )

This is an important book, one that ought to be read to understand how the grain industry ought to be reformed in America, and how aid agencies affect the economies and politics of African nations.

This book is hard to put down. The stories it tells are very interesting and passionately written.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books of recent years, October 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity (Hardcover)

At a time when the answer to most problems seems to be throwing money in their direction, Maren points out graphically and convincingly that a) it doesn't help; and b) it often does more harm than good. As I read his argument he seems to be saying simply that the problems in poor countries are generally caused by the corrupt and/or indifferent practices of thier leadership. Aid and charity always support that leadership and therefore perpetuate the problems.

He uses the example of Somalia and other African countries but it's easy to see the full breadth of his argument. Further he shows that most charites like CARE and Save the Children are actively aware of the damage they are causing (he cites internal memos) but continue on their way because they are dependent upon Western governments for tens of millions of dollars in financing that goes along with doing their projects.

To my mind, two things make this book unique: First, it's part memoir (Maren has been both an aid worker and journalist in Africa) and told in a riveting narrative style. Unlike most "policy" books, the characters come alive in this one. Second, and most important, Maren is not one of those right-wing cranks who wants do abandon the poor to rot in their own poverty. He believes that the rich countries have a moral obligation to help the Third World. This is the ultimate insider exposé. He does a great job tossing the money lenders from the temple.