ISBN 90259 56505

Poverty- the Sting in Our Wealth

‘Poor countries  possess the greatest wealth. There is sun; there is photosynthesis,’ says Herman Wijffels. If we want to secure our energy supplies, good cooperation with those countries is a must. And there is more than just energy. ‘Our destiny is connected with the destiny of all other people on earth.’

In Kathleen Ferrier's book, Herman Wijffels and fourteen other prominent women and men -from the North and South- give their opinion on the perspectives, results and effects of fifty years of development cooperation.

Some of them are positive, like Mark Malloch Brown, the previous UN Deputy Secretary-General, others critical, amongst them Mabel of Orange: “Focusing on a smaller number of countries is dangerous and risky. You cannot make a paradise of Ghana and let its neighbour country Ivory Coast be a mess.”

Kathleen G. Ferrier is Member of Dutch Parliament (CDA-representative). She worked in Chile and Brazil in the area of development cooperation for ten years.

The book, only available in Dutch at the moment, contains interviews with: Noreena Hertz, Lulu Wang,  Maria Liberia-Peters, Bas de Gaay Fortman, Clare Short, Gerrie ter Haar, Jorge Balbis, Mark Malloch Brown,  Hans Eenhoorn, Mabel of Orange, Willemijn Verloop, Rein Willems, Angelina Muganza, Herman Wijffels and Amina Mama.