The economist's tale

A consultant encounters hunger and the World Bank Peter Griffiths, Zed Books, 252 pages, hardback £49.95, paperback £15.95

This book is a frightening and fascinating insight into the World Bank, where the author was employed as a consultant in Sierra Leone. He was there as the economy collapsed, and records how the World Bank tried to impose free market fundamentalism on the devastated country.

The Bank wanted an end to government food imports and subsidies. It thought the private sector would organise imports more efficiently than the state.

But, as Griffiths writes, businesses were unlikely to start importing food in a crisis situation where profits were not guaranteed and they might lose everything. Even if they did import, they would tend to hoard food and save it until they could sell it at a higher price, leaving millions starving.

Griffiths recounts his desperate attempt to stop this policy, which would have destroyed an already poor population. He has written an honest account of a neo-colonial world where governments are terrified of annoying minor "aid" officials, even if the price is famine.