Aid First

Ian Smillie is Canada’s most knowledgeable expert on foreign aid. In The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World, he joins Larry Minear of Tufts University to produce a donor’s guide to spending our dollars. Smillie tops his previous publications, Patronage or Partnership, Managing for Change and The Alms Bazaar, in a book that may help the reader handle the relentless plopping of pleading epistles in the front hall.

The Charity of Nations was launched in advance of the Asian tsunami’s catastrophic impact, which continues to test the world’s compassion. Over 276 pages, however, the authors lay out clear, concise prescriptions they insist should be followed by donors and doers attempting to respond to a humanitarian crisis like the one that has shaken the world since Boxing Day. Government decision makers and international nongovernmental organizations should pay heed, since the immensity and urgency...