How to Help the Bottom Billion

Niall Ferguson reviews the new book by Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion, in Sunday's NYT Book Review, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Ferguson explains Collier's thesis that most of Africa's problems stem from civil wars, and goes on to talk about Collier's support of "foreign interventions in failed states". Then, however, he retreats:

It would be wrong to portray Collier as a proponent of gunboat development. In the end, he pins more hope on the growth of international law than on global policing. Perhaps the best help we can offer the bottom billion, he suggests, comes in the form of laws and charters: laws requiring Western banks to report deposits by kleptocrats, for example, or charters to regulate the exploitation of natural resources, to uphold media freedom and to prevent fiscal fraud. We may not be able to force corrupt governments to sign such conventions. But simply by creating them we give reformers in Africa some extra leverage.

Laws and charters? This is what Ferguson means when he says that Collier's solution to the problem of African poverty "involves more — much more — than handouts"?

I should probably read the book to learn more: after all, it has been blurbed by an very impressive list of individuals, including Ernesto Zedillo, Nick Stern, George Soros, Martin Wolf, Nick Kristof, and Larry Summers. Wolf seems to agree with Ferguson, saying that the book shows "how far western governments and other external actors are from currently giving the sort of help these countries desperately need."

Maybe the fact that neither Ferguson nor Wolf is capable of reducing Collier's book to an easy-to-understand slogan is testament to its sophistication and importance. The problem of Africa is not an easy one, and if there are solutions, they won't be easy either. I just hope that somewhere in the book can be found some kind of faith in Africa's abilities to help itself, maybe given slightly improved initial conditions. Ultimately, "what can be done about the poorest countries," to quote the books subtitle, is going to have to be done by and within the countries themselves: development, like democracy, is one of those things which is very, very difficult to export.

(Via Thoma)