Our Dream: A World Free of Poverty

By Sandra Granzow

Book Overview

Too often, discussions of development lose sight of the most important goal: to better the lives of individuals and families and improve conditions in the developing world. In this vivid photo book, the human face of development work is brought to the fore. Behind the photos, the human style, and the quotes from Bank Group staff and country counterparts are real stories about poverty that depict eighteen projects from around the world where the Bank and its partners have made a demonstrable impact. The stories were researched and written with extensive cooperation from the project and country teams. Photographs were provided by Bank Group staff in the field, in-country photographers, and the Bank Group's archives.

The eighteen different projects are grouped under seven headings: Land, Farms, and Roads; Reforming Schools, Enrolling Kids: The Staff of Life Hunger and Nutrition]; Citizens as the Doers of Development; Doing Good while Doing Well; One Nation, Two Worlds; and Holistic Development Illustrated. Examples of projects described are: "Morocco: The Difference a Road Makes," "Benin: Food Where There Was None," "Estonia: A Breath of Fresh Air in the Baltic," and "Bolivia: A New Recipe for Attacking Proverty." Other areas profiled include India, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Madagascar, Uganda, Peru, Mali, the Philippines, Argentina, Columbia, and Vietnam.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195216040
• ISBN13: 9780195216042
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 2.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 10.4" x 10.4"

Customer Reviews

We are all interconnected

Our Dream, A World Free of Poverty, demystifies that strange word "development," making it the perfect gift for anyone unfamiliar with the efforts of thousands of professional men and women working to end poverty alongside people in parts of the world far less well off than our own. Sandy Granzow has been able to capture with extraordinary pictures and informative prose the positive and hopeful results when people are given the tools and resources to solve urgent and pressing human problems. The book is a wonderful way to see up close what the lives of people in cultures very different from our own are like and to realize all over again how remarkably interconnected we are as a human family. This is a book that should uplift and inspire us each to reach out a helping hand and actively fight for bringing balance and justice to all parts of the world.

Great Photos!

It was fascinating to see what Timbuktu really looks like. The book also shows an Estonian town covered with smog so thick that it looks like falling snow. A local cement factory was the problem, and the book tells of a successful World Bank effort help the locals clean up the city. A great book for people who like international photographs.

A rich display of photographs of developing countries

"Our Dream" is, above all, an astonishingly rich display of high quality photographs of ordinary people in developing countries going about their day-to day activities. It devotes much attention to children, at school, at home, at work. It also give much attention to people engaged in improving their conditions, getting ahead. The mood is largely upbeat, with cheerful colors and cheerful faces, but the images are not contrived, nor are they too narrowly selected. It may come as a surprise to many of us living in prosperous nations that poor people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America find joy in life, even in the most barren of circumstances. There is plenty of data to document the stories, but the author has done an admirable job of keeping the reader's eye on the photographs, which reveal over and over again the beauty of the human spirit.