ABSTRACT
It should be obvious that the people and projects in this book bear witness to solid, important achievements with immense potential for the future. Bertrand Schneider (1988) calculates that development NGOs currently benefit some 100 million people out of the 2 billion rural poor with whom he is principally concerned, and have brought them great benefits at a cost of only some US$6.50 per head per year (p.213). He then calls for an annual investment of US$13 billion per year to reach the other 1.9 billion people in his target group (p.236). Schneider does not say whether he considers this should be ‘new money’ or resources transferred from existing allocations. He does make clear, however, that it should be an investment in rural areas in small-scale activities in which the beneficiaries ‘retain the initiative, choice and responsibility for development decisions which are aimed at answering their real needs’. Such large-scale projects as may still necessary will then proceed from a quite different motivational, practical and political basis, in which ‘the starting point of development efforts is the village or community’ (p.226).
