Development Projects for a New Millennium. By Anil Hira and Trevor Parfitt. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. 216p. $74.95 cloth, $29.95 paper.

This book fills a vacuum for those interested in development policy and administration. Development administration has been a subfield very much in limbo for the past two decades as the market and civil society have attracted prime interest among development analysts and practitioners. Anil Hira and Trevor Parfitt argue that development assistance agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development, its bilateral counterparts in Europe, and the World Bank, continue to insist on a mode of operation that perpetuates the same weaknesses that were identified in earlier literature on development administration and management. These agencies insist on short time spans for the activities that they fund. They treat these projects as if void of people. They fail to share information with potential beneficiaries. Above all, they do not hold themselves to the same high standards of accountability and transparency that they impose on recipients of their aid. With more and more development activities being carried out by community-based organizations and other nongovernmental bodies, these aid agencies have increasingly become part of the problem, not just the solution. The gap between donor and recipient has simply become too big to overcome.