Simone Raudino is Attaché for the European Union, Brussels, and founder of Gap Consultants, a Hong Kong-based business consultancy company exploring alternative ways of promoting economic and social growth in low-income countries. He is also co-founder of Bridging Gaps, a not-for-profit society promoting interfaith, intercultural and inter-ethnic dialogue.

Introduction.- Chapter 1. A practitioner's perspective on development aid.- Chapter 2. The theory of economic development.- Chapter 3. The praxis of economic growth: lessons from history.- Chapter 4. A quantitative assessment of Africa's international economic relations.- Chapter 5. A qualitative analysis of Africa - West economic relations.- Chapter 6. A qualitative analysis of Africa - China economic relations.- Conclusions.

This book offers an original analysis of the long-term impact of western and Chinese economic and development cooperation policies in Africa. It argues that western Official Development Assistance (ODA) has failed to create viable and autonomous economies in beneficiary countries not (only) because of corruption, inefficiencies and cultural differences, but because it was never meant to do so. Raudino demonstrates, rather, that it was always designed to provide relief measures and nurture political relations rather than create genuinely industrialized and self-reliant economies. Similarly, by analyzing the nature of Chinese economic investments in Africa the author shows that China's governmental policies hardly represent a revolutionary departure from the cooperation standards set by the West. In making these observations he also taps into the broader question of why wealth continues to be generated unequally across the world. Based on extensive fieldwork, quantitative economic analysis and historical qualitative research, this thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of politics, economics and development studies, as well as to those involved more directly in the aid process.