Development Projects for a New Millennium, Anil Hira and Trevor Parfitt, Westport, Conn, and London: Praeger, 2004, pp. 216.

This is a book aimed at readers who work in the “aid business”. These include officials of bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, and the non-government organizations and consultancies working on contract for or independent of the official agencies. Its fundamental premise is that aid works best if it helps its ultimate beneficiaries realize their own goals. Much of the book provides an analysis of how the purveyors of aid can go about achieving this objective.