Every now and then I find it impossible to keep this blog film-focused. There is too much else happening in the world. Today is one of those days because I am reading an eye-opening book by Giles Bolton (my copy is called Aid And Other Dirty Business but in the US it is called Africa Doesn’t Matter) – it is a brilliant investigation into why Africa is still so poor and why aid often doesn’t do the good that we expect it to. And it is not a one-sided attack on the policies of the West either. Bolton is careful to look at the problems, corruptions and misunderstandings on all sides but he is clearly angry that aid is still delivered in such an inefficient and damaging fashion. Referring to national and international aid (World Bank, IMF) he says:

In an ideal world, the West would accept a role as venture capitalist for the world’s poorest countries too [in reference to the huge levels of structural funding that went to eastern European countries joining the EU] if it is serious about sparking growth, instead of the rather patronising spoonfeeding of small amounts of assistance here and there. Performance to date has been weak. No venture-capital firm would offer businesses such unpredictable loans and grants. No venture-capital firm would apply such a wide variety of changing conditions. Most of all, no sensible venture-capital firm would bother backing any organisation with only half or less of the money it needs for its business plan. It would realise the plan wouldn’t work, the business wouldn’t thrive and the venture-capital firm would lose its investment.

What is the cost of this failure? Africans are denied adequate help in their daily struggle to beat poverty. No, let’s be more honest: people die when they don’t need to. Western taxpayers and charity donors are not getting the results from their aid money they would hope – more simply: not getting what they paid for; and, though this may not be the most serious element, thousands of aid workers are left to return home each evening to the most pleasant of houses in the most unpleasant of knowledge – that they are working within a flawed system unable to deliver its objectives.