Adventures in the Aid Trade

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 citizen–state 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.

"Adventures in the Aid Trade stands alone for the extraordinary range of experience and insight it presents. I know of no other book quite like it…For all who work in development or aspire to do so, it is a grounded and invaluable source of learning and inspiration...[and] a rich source of ideas for how we can do better. I commend it to all development professionals, whatever their roles, as an engaging read and a fertile source of learning." -- Robert Chambers, OBE"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

• Introduction 1 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and street children, 1966–69: trying hard to keep a welfare institution going 2 Maun, Botswana, 1970–72: making technical education pay for itself 3 South Sudan, 1973–75: reconstructing the country in its one short period of peace 4 LSE and Patchwork Community, 1970–76: keeping in touch with the UK 5 Dominica, West Indies, 1976–78: demanding assistance from the State or the joys of self-help 6 South Pacific, 1979–80: appropriate technology, ideologues and small gains 7 Java, Indonesia, 1979–84: more AT ideologues and people’s technology 8 The far east of Indonesia, 1979–84: Oxfam, famine in East Timor and the amazing growth of Leucaena leucocephala in NTT 9 Positive deviance, 1980–81 and 1984–85: nutrition in Indonesia and rice/fish farming in north-east Thailand 10 Bangladesh, 1989–95: NGOs, CSOs, dependence on aid and independence from aid 11 Zambia, 1995–99: moving into advocacy from service delivery 12 CSOs everywhere, 1990 to the present: trying fundraising and resource mobilisation, not donor dependence 13 Indonesia, 1999–2004: never again, neither Suharto nor his corruption 14 East Timor, 2002–04: moving from relief and human rights to development and civil rights 15 Tajikistan, 2005–10: persuading ex-apparatchiks that citizens can do good without the State 16 Different countries in Africa, 2005–10: building integrity and CSO standards as an alternative to fighting corruption 17 Nepal, 2010–13: the birth of social accountability, digging down into corruption and half-hearted efforts to control it 18 Myanmar, 2015–16: watching a country become aid-dependent and doing nothing about corruption 19 East Africa, 2018–19: social accountability neutered by corruption 20 Reflections: bringing it all together Index