Summary of Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The third world has shrunk. For forty years, the development challenge has been a rich world of one billion people facing a poor world of five billion people. But the real challenge of development is that there is a group of countries at the bottom that are falling behind, and often falling apart.

#2 There are some societies that have fallen into poverty, and they are an unlucky minority. But they are still stuck there, and their leaders are not willing to change their ways.

#3 The concept of a development trap has been around for a long time. It refers to the consequences of malaria and other health problems, which keep countries poor. However, there are four traps that have received less attention: the conflict trap, the natural resources trap, the trap of being landlocked with bad neighbors, and the trap of bad governance in a small country.

#4 There are 980 million people living in trapped countries as of 2006. Most are in Africa, and most Africans are living in countries that have been in one or another of the traps.

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Release date

Ebook: 5 June 2022