Faith and Charity: Religion and Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa

Since the 1980s, programs of humanitarian assistance in Africa have for the most part operated along neoliberal lines. Faith and Charity examines how that approach has changed relationships between religious action, humanitarian assistance, and social change. Exploring the logics of economic liberalization, including the reduction of government spending and the rise of the private sector, the authors look at how these changes have also transformed the attitudes of individuals towards society and the economy in ways that privilege individual achievement over any kind of collective well-being.