O'Nions, James

On the basis of the official invitations from previous DSEi exhibitions, we can say with certainty that representatives from countries engaged in conflict, with poor human rights records and with major development needs will all be in attendance again this year.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's annual Human Rights Report for 2005 considers twenty countries in detail, in which it considers that human rights are a particularly serious problem. Six of these; Afghanistan…

This isn’t a book about humanitarian relief, or really about the aid delivered by aid agencies at all. Instead its about the much bigger sums which rich countries’s governments contribute to African infrastructure, governance and welfare systems on a regular basis.

Most African countries receive more than 10% of their GDP in aid, and a few, like Sierra Leone and Burundi, receive more than 30 per cent. Aid received on this scale has an enormous impact, but not necessarily a good one,…