Between a Swamp and a Hard Place: Developmental Challenges in Remote Rural Africa

This book should be required reading for all those involved in development throughout the world, not only in Africa. It is well written and provides a guide to some of the pitfalls that can be expected on any project. Reading it will not eliminate all future failures, but it should allow others to avoid some of the major ones. Finally, the authors are to be commended for providing such a readable, objective account and evaluation of a project near and dear to their hearts. The manuscript provides a standard and a challenge to others recording project histories. Congratulations to David C. Cole and Richard Huntington for taking the time to put these valuable lessons down on paper for all to read.
--James J. Riley (Journal of Developing Areas)

Cole and Huntington describe the rise and fall of a 'new directions' development project funded by USAID and implemented by the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) among the Ngok Dinka ethnic group in the community of Abeyi, southern Sudan, from mid-1977 through mid-1981...This forthright account contrasting development rhetoric with the reality of a complex USAID project carried out in a remote and difficult environment will be of great interest to applied social scientists and development practitioners. A reflective afterword is presented by Francis Deng, a Dinka from Abeyi who is both an anthropologist and a UN official.
--D. M. Warren (Choice)