The recollections of a young MSF doctor provide a refreshing take on the humanitarian aid worker experience. Brown is a candid author who unpicks the fragile emotions surrounding his work in Africa.

This searingly honest and funny personal account of his work in Angola, Mozambique and Sudan charts the emotional highs and lows of helping those in need in isolated and under-equipped conditions.

Although he suffers a painful breakdown and ends his work with MSF, Brown emerges from his experiences surprisingly optimistic, and there is a positive tone throughout the book.

By working on a medical frontline, Brown is engaging in ‘a bed for the night’ humanitarianism – immediate interventions that can save lives but the patients may remain as vulnerable as before.

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An important new paper from some big development names directs a slightly fierce but welcome political economy gaze at donor efforts to strengthen civil society – one of the more recent developmental fads.

One of the striking conclusions is how little we really know, but it gropes gamely through the fog of ignorance and confusion and arrives at some interesting conclusions.

Village-level group formation in Africa increased dramatically over the 1990s when participatory approaches were promoted through aid, and adopted by governments to deliver projects to communities.

That increased participation applies to both democratic and less democratic systems. The question is in what situations the upsurge in civil society has impact, and how – if at all aid – agencies can help.

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Every now and then, a ‘Big Book on Development’ comes along that triggers a storm of arguments. One such is ‘Why Nations Fail’, by Acemoglu and Robinson, which has provoked a proliferation of reviews and debates.

The book sets out to explain world inequality, pointing to the importance of inclusive institutions, to the superiority of politics over economics as a key factor, and to failure as the norm – why poor nations ‘got it wrong’.

The strongest part of the book is its focus on the dynamics of change. It almost feels like physics – path dependence is key. Minor differences in initial conditions caused by gentle ‘institutional drift’ make a huge difference when a country hits a ‘critical juncture’.

The book’s biggest problem is the love affair with the American Dream (though not perhaps, American Reality). ‘Successful institutions’ bear a remarkable resemblance to America’s constitution, separation of powers etc.

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Two years ago, Ghana revised GDP estimates upwards by over 60 per cent. As a result Ghana was suddenly upgraded from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income country.

The most widely used measure of economic activity is made up of poor numbers. Governments are not able to make informed decisions because existing data are too weak or the data they need do not exist.

Can the income and growth of Ghana be compared with other economies in the region? The uneven application of methods and poor availability of data makes any ranking of countries according to GDP levels misleading.

One of the most urgent challenges in African economic development is to devise a strategy for improving statistical capacity. Poor numbers are too important to be dismissed as just that.

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This interesting and thought-provoking volume dissects the way in which power and profit are organised and pursued in African landscapes of violence and insecurity, with a special focus on the roles played by informal networks and ‘Big Men’.

This is mainly a descriptive work, but one with sharp analytical insights and a number of lessons relevant to those interested in the mechanics of African conflicts and the multi-layered systems of governance that underpin them.

It also represents a rejection of the mantra that war is simply ‘development in reverse’, encouraging the reader to consider instead the everyday politics of control, survival and accumulation in warscapes and the agency required to engage in such practices.

The book is a testament to the value of good in-depth research in expanding and refining our understanding of war. It demonstrates why robust qualitative inquiry is indispensable when it comes to deciphering conflict and discovering what is really there.

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Meles’ passing marks a sombre moment for Africa as well as a potentially worrying one for the peoples of Ethiopia. Without question, Meles has presided over the most constructive and dynamic period in Ethiopia’s modern history.

The country has made notable progress over a relatively short period in numerous fields of economic and human development. It also seems undisputed that a large part of this achievement is attributable to the leadership Meles gave his country over this period.

Meles was exceptional as an intellectual, capable of contributing – for example – a robust chapter on the developmental role of the state to an excellent recent book. His ideas as translated into policy may not all have been right, but they did have scope and serious grounding.

The critical vehicle for controlling the disruptive and potentially fatal impacts of a leadership transition is not the electoral system or parliament. It is the ruling or dominant political party. All eyes need to be focused therefore on the processes now taking place in Ethiopia’s TPLF and EPRDF.

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A fascinating new paper examines recent educational reforms in Mali, Niger and Senegal – three overwhelmingly Muslim, francophone countries in West Africa.

All three have tried to harness the strength of popular religiosity to make schools more attractive to parents by incorporating Muslim values and expectations and ensure training for future employment.
Such ‘hybrid schools’ have been extremely popular with parents; the challenge to the State is how to meet the high and growing demand they have created.

Despite the fears of some observers, the reforms have not exacerbated gender imbalances. At primary school level, for example, the emphasis on religion has proven particularly attractive to parents of girls. In many hybrid schools, girls outnumber boys, sometimes significantly.

Finally, preliminary indications suggest that the success rates of the hybrid schools, as measured by the number of students passing state exams, is as good as or better than that of the classic francophone schools.

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Development professionals are often told ‘what bleeds leads’ by fundraising experts and members of the media. Images and stories of dying children, disasters and despair tend to dominate headlines, often fuelling a general sense of hopelessness and skepticism toward development efforts, including development assistance.

In fact there has been much progress globally to be recognized and celebrated, though challenges remain. A recent report on ‘Progress in Child Well-Being – Building on What Works’ examines changes to the well-being of children over the past 20 years. It is a story of remarkable progress that has media paying attention.

In short, children are healthier, better fed, cared for and more attend school than a generation ago. This aggregate story is illustrated through country case studies, including remarkable progress concerning child mortality in Bangladesh, HIV-infected children in Botswana, child poverty in Viet Nam, schooling in Ethiopia, and nutrition in Brazil.

The report’s main takeaway is that with the right mix of commitment, supportive policies, and sufficient resources – including well-targeted development assistance – development works. Perhaps the time has come to retire the defeatist truism about blood and ink, and instead tell the story of global development as one of a glass half full?

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Ethiopia is populated by highlanders who historically have been part of the state formation and whose rulers have subjugated a number of nationalities in the highland periphery and in the surrounding lowlands.

This struggle between the centre and the periphery is a momentous issue for the country. The three regimes that have ruled the country during the last hundred years have resorted to military power and violence to control the territory and extract its resources.

About 12 % of Ethiopia’s population are nomads and their pasture-lands make up more than half of the area of the country. They are barring the way of development and development will annihilate them – brutally and at breakneck speed.

The only solution is to create a nation for all Ethiopians. Two regimes fell while defending the interests of the central power, and the third and present had to give up Eritrea, thus incurring the bitterness of all Ethiopian nationalists.

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The first Africa Human Development Report, was launched on May 15 in Nairobi. It was about time, especially given recent famine in the Horn and repeated threats of humanitarian food crises in the Sahel. The report focuses on food security – for a large number of Africans (some 220 million), hunger is a daily threat – and often one with permanent consequences.

The premise of the Africa HDR is simple: food security, through better nutrition, can improve education, health, productivity, and other important social and economic factors that allow people to have a good life.

Sub-Saharan Africa has not been able to turn improvements in human development into better nutrition indicators – especially compared to Asia’s progress in the last two decades. In sub-Saharan Africa the number of malnourished children increased by 55 million in the last 10 years.

The power structures that keep certain groups from accessing land or that bias public investment towards leaders’ constituencies must be clearly identified – and African governments, civil society, and other stakeholders will need to alter these power relations and give everyone a fair chance to avoid the perils of hunger and its negative consequences for human development.

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