GDI Executive Director, Professor David Hulme, has written a short and accessible analysis of why and how rich nations should help poor people and poorer countries. The book is ideal for general readers and students new to Development Studies and is available from Wiley for £7.49, using the discount code: PY724.

1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty and around 2.9 billion cannot meet their basic human needs. We know that foreign aid is necessary, but not sufficient to end global poverty. Spiralling inequality and the growing impact of climate change on poor people threatens to derail the progress that’s been made over the last 25 years.

Hulme explains why helping the world’s neediest communities is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do – if rich nations want to take care of their own citizens’ future welfare.

The real question is how best to provide this help. The way forward, Hulme argues, is not solely about foreign aid but also trade, finance and environmental policy reform. But this must happen alongside a change in international social norms so that we all recognize the collective benefits of a poverty-free world.

“David Hulme has provided an invaluable primer on why and how we should help the poor of the world. He rightly sees the key issues as climate change and inequality. In the end, we are all in this together, rich and poor alike.” Angus Deaton, Princeton University and Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics