ABSTRACT
Poverty in Africa or Latin America or parts of Asia is of a different order. In the words of the economist Paul Collier, there is a "bottom billion" who are destitute. In this chapter, the author describes the work in Southern Africa and in central Asia. He offers a series of examples of the problems with definitions of success by charities and others, and how painful and wasteful failure might be for the people who received – or might have received – the aid. The South African anthropologist Pamela Reynolds also noted of her studies of township nurseries in Capetown that in the most physically difficult conditions, singing held everything together. In South Africa the worlds of rich and poor continue to collide. The 'culture' had in fact been manufactured by white colonialists at the turn of the 20th century, as a chip in the battle for control of South Africa.
