It explains how the plight of the bottom billion affect us all and consider the factors that maintain the current position then examines why this is the case - e.g. There are some striking observations about poverty and the four 'traps' which leave a section of the worlds population in the 'bottom billion' with little chance of escaping. Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why? Afterall, who knows the problems of the bottom billion, and the way out, better than those who live it daily. Regardless of geographical location, nationality, ideology or faith, lack of development (poverty by any other name) is first and foremost a HUMAN BEING problem. I have used that phrase (because it is shorter than Bottom Billion) to wish for a forum where the great minds of the bottom billion countries could come together and develop a Socio-economic development CHARTER using this book as a frame of reference. A Made for Nigeria, Made by Nigerians, Socio-economic Blue-print. Bottom Billion nations might be economically poor in relative terms, but despite this adversity, they have produced some of the greatest minds that have been applied to global problems. In The Bottom Billion, he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.Ĭlear specific actions, from the developed world perspective using the instrumentalities of developed nations to alleviate Bottom Billion problems. Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty.

If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions.

What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. Standard solutions do not work, he writes aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that ensnare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards.Ī struggle rages within each of these nations between reformers and corrupt leaders - and the corrupt are winning. In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that 50 failed states - home to the poorest one billion people on earth - pose the central challenge of the developing world in the 21st century.

The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier