Charities, Not Government, Will Help Create Social Change and Alleviate Inequality

NEW BOOKS

The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations From the Bottom Up — Compassion as America’s Most Consequential Export
by Don Eberly

“Attempts by development policy experts to bring prosperity through command-and-control bureaucracies have mostly failed,” argues Don Eberly, an author and civil-society expert who says that nonprofit groups will play a critical role in global development.

“The key will be to find new ways to harness the best of both the public and the private sector to create a new era of experimentation, one that relies on markets and civil society, with the poor everywhere serving as partners in their own development,” he adds. “The government dominated the past. Nongovernmental entities and forces will dominate the future.”

Mr. Eberly believes that the 21st century is a “new era” of local — or “bottom up” — development efforts. He emphasizes that building strong communities, including strong local civil institutions, is linked to democracy and the expansion of prosperity.

Mr. Eberly discusses foreign aid, anti-American sentiment around the world, globalization and corporate citizenship, microenterprise, and religion, among other topics. He describes the obstacles in the way of global development and what sort of solutions are needed.

The book concludes with suggestions to help governments, businesses, foundations, policy makers, individuals, and others “think strategically about how they might help improve social, economic, and political conditions in the world.”

Publisher: Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 400, New York, N.Y. 10003; (212) 871-6310 or (800) 786-3839; fax (212) 871-6311 or (877) 811-1461; http://www.encounterbooks.com; 334 pages; $27.95; ISBN 978-1-59403-214-1.