Oxford book on global poverty wins Lionel Gelber Prize

from the Hindu

London (PTI): A book written by an Oxford academic that seeks to explain why poorest countries are failing and what solutions might help them, has won the prestigious Lionel Gelber Prize for 2008.

The book, titled 'The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It', is written by Oxford University economist Professor Paul Collier.

The Lionel Gelber Prize is awarded to the author of the world's best book on international affairs. The Economist has called it 'the world's most important award for non-fiction.'

Prof Collier is Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony's College.

In the book, Prof Collier sees 980 million people around the globe living in "trapped countries clearly heading towards a black hole."

Many of these people are in Africa, but there are large pockets of severe poverty in such places as Bolivia, Cambodia, East Timor, Haiti, Laos, North Korea, Myanmar, Yemen, and elsewhere.

Prof Collier asserts that the challenge of lifting them out of poverty is akin to rebuilding Europe after the Second World War.

He writes that it requires not only immediate aid, but also trade and security effectively promoted by such multilateral institutions as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.