Adventures in the Aid Trade is at once memoir, how to manual, reflexive critique, and globe-trotting picaresque narrative. Full of insight, humour and heart, Richard Holloway has produced an essential text for students, scholars and practitioners of development alike. It is also a great read.
Larry Swatuk, Professor at the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo, Canada
Adventures in the Aid Trade
Adventures in the Aid Trade takes us on a fascinating journey through 40 years of work at the coalface of international development. Drawing on his experiences from long periods in the field, the author reflects on what has worked, what has not and why, and considers how these experiences relate to students and practitioners today.
Looking beyond high-level policy matters and international relations, this book focuses instead on the authors actual experiences in the field and the inspired local people he encountered. The narrative traces how these people, working through their own organisations, make a difference to the lives of their contemporaries, and learn how to generate the income to do it. Chapters draw on the authors experiences of working with local practitioners from 40 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, South, South East and Central Asia, and the South Pacific. Peppered with lively stories and anecdotes, Adventures in the Aid Trade provides valuable lessons from the shifting aid landscape and reflects on where the industry is likely to go next.
Whether you are a current development practitioner or a student just starting out in your understanding of the development and humanitarian sectors, this book provides an invaluable snapshot of the world of civil society organisations, governance and the voluntary sector, and the lived lives of ordinary people in extraordinary times.
Richard Holloway is an international development professional with more than 40 years experience managing social development projects and programmes in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. He has extensive experience of working with non-state and state actors to strengthen processes of citizenstate engagement, and over 20 years experience of implementing and managing large donor-funded projects (USAID, DFID, UNDP, EU, World Bank). He is currently an independent consultant after many years as a long-term project manager. His notable books are Beyond NGOs: CSOs with Development Impact, Doing Development: Governments, CSOs and the Rural Poor in Asia and Towards Financial Self-Reliance: Handbook on Resource Mobilization for CSOs in the South.
First published 2020
by Routledge
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2020 Richard Holloway
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Holloway, Richard, 1945- author.
Title: Adventures in the aid trade : forty years practising development in forty countries / Richard Holloway.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019050511 (print) | LCCN 2019050512 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367434038 (paperback) | ISBN 9780367434045 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003002963 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Economic assistanceDeveloping countries. | Developing countriesEconomic conditions.
Classification: LCC HC60 .H66435 2020 (print) | LCC HC60 (ebook) | DDC 338.9109172/4dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050511
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050512
ISBN: 978-0-367-43404-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-43403-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-00296-3 (ebk)
Without a doubt my first thanks go to my wife, Clare, who was, I am sure, glad to see me getting my teeth into something rather than moping around the house glooming about retirement, and was hugely supportive, allowing me to draw on her experience as well as my own especially for the chapter on Zambia. Secondly, to my sister, Penny, who was so enthusiastic that I feel apprehensive about living up to her idea of what I might produce. Thirdly, to my children, Heron, Guy and Hannah Rose, who have often prodded me to put my stories into print. And finally, to all the other odd bods who I have bored with my stories and who have over time suggested I write it all down.
Once I had made a draft and showed it to people, I have to thank Sarah Archer, development practitioner nonpareil, who helped to annotate it and enthused over it, saying she wished she had had something like this to refer to when she started working.
Those who have refreshed my memory and corrected mistakes are George Awalla of Kenya, Douglas Kammen of Timor-Leste and Singapore, Beryl Knotts of South Sudan and Oxford, Betty Katoro of South Sudan and Leeds, Ross Kidd of Botswana and Canada, Megan Biesele of Botswana, Namibia and Texas, and David Lewis of Bangladesh and the LSE. The final text is my responsibility, obviously, not theirs.
I hope others whose names appear here (or who I have contacted, or who I have quoted) have no violent objections to what I have written Ezra and Josephine Tsegaye of Ethiopia and Bath, Like Siltana Habte Mariam Workeneh of Ethiopia and USA, Kassa Kebede of Ethiopia and USA, Bill Grisley of Botswana and Illinois, Claire Herford of Dominica and Bristol, Robin Powell of South Sudan and Dulwich, Tom Belknap of South Sudan, Kenya and California, the Grey family of so many places and Sussex, Ken Calvert of Vanuatu, Glen Williams of Java and Oxford, Anton Soejarwo of Indonesia, Paulus Santosa of Indonesia, Janet Durno of Thailand and Canada, retired Surgeon General Suroyo of Indonesia, Aroma Dutta of Bangladesh, Qazi Faruque Ahmed of Bangladesh, Brenda TambaTamba Liswaniso of Zambia, Isomiddin Sahahuddinov of Tajikistan, Felia Salim of Indonesia, Win Myo Thu of Myanmar, Monique Sternin of the USA, Anna Mugambi of Kenya, David Allen of Myanmar and Bangladesh, and Robert Chambers of Sussex IDS.
I know of some I have mentioned who have passed on Mabrahtu Yohannes of Ethiopia, Professor Richard Titmuss of the LSE, Greg Moore of Patchwork, Ann Dunham Soetoro of Indonesia, Kansas and Hawaii, Jerry Van Koeverden of Thailand and Canada, Marjorie Shostak of Botswana and Harvard, Sir Fazle Abed of Bangladesh, and Ian Dury of Billericay. There may be others.
Many thanks to all.
Richard Holloway, Echenevex
