Disaster and Development: The Politics of Humanitarian Aid.

• Author: Thirlwell, Gweneth M.
• Position: REQUIRED READING - Book review

DISASTER AND DEVELOPMENT: THE POLITICS OF HUMANITARIAN AID Neil Middleton and Phil O'Keefe (London: Pluto Press, 1997), 202 pages.

According to Middleton and O'Keefe, "In societies where extreme poverty is rife, everyday life is dangerous." While natural disasters, such as the droughts that have ravaged East Africa in recent decades, add to the precariousness of survival, they are by no means the sole cause of the extensive suffering and loss of life that result. In their book, Disaster and Development: The Politics of Humanitarian Aid, authors Middleton and O'Keefe argue that the true root causes of humanitarian disasters are global economic and political power struggles played out at the expense of the common citizen.

The authors discuss seven case studies from Africa and Central Asia, including Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, Mozambique, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, to highlight the extent to which each humanitarian tragedy was caused less by a natural disaster than by a disruption of traditional power balances and the disenfranchisement of certain groups. The authors assert that the actions of multinational corporations and the "Bretton Woods" institutions have played a large part in engendering these destabilizations.

Further complicating matters, Middleton and O'Keefe point out, is that the...