The Economist's Tale: A Consultant Encounters Hunger and the World Bank

What really happens when the World Bank imposes its policies on a country? This is an insider's view of one aid-made crisis. Peter Griffiths was at the interface between government and the Bank.

In this ruthlessly honest, day by day account of a mission he undertook in Sierra Leone, he uses his diary to tell the story of how the World Bank, obsessed with the free market, imposed a secret agreement on the government, banning all government food imports or subsidies. The collapsing economy meant that the private sector would not import. Famine loomed. No ministry, no state marketing organization, no aid organization could reverse the agreement. It had to be a top-level government decision, whether Sierra Leone could afford to annoy minor World Bank officials.

This is a rare and important portrait of the aid world which insiders will recognize, but of which the general public seldom get a glimpse.

Dr Peter Griffiths is an independent economist and consultant who has been involved in a very wide range of activities over many years, including export marketing studies, pricing studies, privatization investigations, project appraisal missions and project preparation studies. Originally a specialist in the marketing and pricing of agricultural products, he has worked all over the world in the EU, Eastern Europe, Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and the Caribbean. He originally started his career at the University of Cambridge where he worked on horticultural economics. From 1972 to 1980 he was Senior Research Officer at the Irish Agricultural Institute. He has published widely in academic journals, as well as a number of books mainly on economic themes.

This book is being published under a pseudonym since its subject matter relates to a mission which he undertook for the World Bank and the results of which, despite the institutional constraints involved, he feels strongly ought to be in the public domain.