Category Archives: In the News

In the News: Book Reviews

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posted by Carrie Reiling and Tanya Schwarz

The Child CatchersA new book, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption, explores how overseas adoption from a number of countries, including Liberia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, has become entangled in the conservative Christian agenda in the United States. The book has been excerpted in Guernica and Mother Jones, and the author also gave an in-depth interview to National Public Radio.

 

frontmanVerso has just released Harry Browne’s critique of Bono and the overall trend of celebrity philanthropy in his book The Frontman: Bono (In the Name of Power). Since the release, former President Clinton has come to Bono’s defense, while Dave Marsh, writing for Counterpunch, is more critical.

News Item: On “The Rise of African Philanthropy”

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posted by Bangirana Albert Billy

This article, featured in the Mail & Guardian, by Manqoba Nxumalo is uniquely critical to the upcoming and yet still skewed African philanthro-capitalism. Drawing from the renowned sustainability researcher Glenn Ashton, Nxumalo argues that modern African philanthropy could be a disguised copy of the Western philanthropic model – “a misleading smoke screen for business as usual”.

On Geldof and Aid

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“Why Bob Geldof is Wrong about Africa”
posted by Cecelia Lynch

Both Mills and Geldof perpetuate stereotypes about “needs” in Africa:  while Geldof embodies do-good paternalism, Mills perpetuates modernization-through-foreign-investment as “the” solution, ignoring the degree to which not only domestic governments but also their foreign private and governmental partners are responsible for “bad governance” in Africa and elsewhere.  Both stereotypes are problematic and represent the overly-simplistic poles of the “great aid debate” that represent Africa and Africans only as subjects to be acted upon rather than as agents in creating their histories and deciding their futures.

On Foreign Aid and Africa

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“The History of Foreign Aid Dependency: Challenges for Africa”
posted by Bangirana Albert

This article by Tinashe Nyatoro is adapted from the book, The Impact of Aid Dependence on Social Development: the case of Zimbabwe. It is a systematic and well articulated critique of aid to and in Africa. Crafted within the pro-aid theory/capital diffusion and the anti-aid paradigm/dependency theory this analysis reasons with the need, the want and the necessity debates of aid in Africa as well as the desire for and of ‘development partners’ to aid African economies. It informs and poses pertinent questions for critical reflection on future development partnerships targeting Africa.