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The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It - Review

Paul Collier examines the dire situation of the world’s poorest one billion; the countries at the bottom of the global economic system. These countries have not just remained poor over the years, but have actually failed to grow. 

He devotes more attention to Africa; positing that the face of global poverty has shifted with China, India and some other countries having surged ahead. (It is quite nice to have watched China announce its victory over absolute poverty just recently, having lifted over 100 million people out of extreme poverty in the last eight years).

The question would remain “why have some countries made progress while others have refused to grow?” Collier identifies four development traps that constitute impediments to growth in the bottom-billion countries. 

The first is the conflict trap: countries in the bottom billion are constantly threatened with violence, coups and civil wars - all of which are detrimental to economic development. Second is the natural resources trap: most of these countries have natural resource endowments which instead of bringing wealth, unfortunately facilitates their entrapment as it shifts attention from necessary reforms and stunts the growth of other sectors in the economy. The third trap is being landlocked with poor neighbors. Geography matters for development. The transport costs for a landlocked country depends on how much its coastal neighbor had spent on their transport infrastructure. 

"If you are landlocked with poor transport links to the coast that are beyond your control, it is very difficult to integrate into global markets for any product that requires a lot of transport…" 

The last is the trap of bad governance and poor policies. This must be very clear to Nigerians; having seen time and time again, how our government actually hinders development with poorly-thought-out policies.

On a path to solutions, he recognizes that sustainable change in the bottom-billion cannot be imposed; it must come from within. He tackles the manner with which development aid had been delivered over the years. If the bottom billion countries will escape the poverty trap, Collier believes that western countries would have to do more than throw aid around. He advocates for some more intentionality in offering aid; using aid to finance turnarounds; deploying it in form of technical assistance to these nations. 

There are people within the bottom billion who actually seek reform. But reform is not easy. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would say “good public policy has a lot more enemies than friends.” Vested interests will always have their knives out to kill off reform attempts. Collier posits that it is the responsibility of the western countries to strengthen the hands of the reformers in the bottom-billion countries. He puts forth measures such as military interventions to support democratic regimes, international standard-setting, and trade policy reforms. And all these would be within the ambit of the G8 and WTO.

I personally think this book does a better job with the analysis of the problem of these countries than with the proffering of easily-applicable solutions. Collier points out earlier on that the solution to the poverty trap in the bottom-billion must come from within, but he goes ahead to proffer solutions that all lie without the bottom-billion countries. It would require complex and brobdingnagian international coordination to achieve the solutions he puts forth.

I would want to think the perspective should have been about what these countries can do to escape the poverty trap and not what "western countries" can do to salvage the stagnating "Africa+."


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