Try Rodger Yeager, Tanzania: An African Experiment, 2nd edition, Westview Press, 1989.
>
> He observes that humanitarian aid is a total racket and
> failure.
Not necessarily. There is a lot of corruption, to be true, and many corrupt NGOs resist any attempts to introduce accountability and transparency. What is more, dictatorial politics often results in government attacks on the opposition's NGOs - which does not promote transparency either. However, NGOs are a major economic force accounting for 2-3% of the GDP (see our recent publication _Global Civil Society; Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector, vol.2_ Kumarian Press, 2004) and they play an important role, especially in dealing with AIDS epidemic. What is more, NGOs created on European models were an important training ground for the entire cadre of African political activists who fought for national independence in the 1950s and 1960s and then assumed national leadership.
Ditto for African socialism (especially of
> the Tanzanian variety).
See the Yeager book on that.
> He is particularly scornful of tourists who come
> to see the animals and never venture into the slums
> or the bush.
I've been to both, Nairobi slums and the bush, and it is definitely safer to go to the latter. I ventured there only because the driver of the university van which we used offered to take me there after dire warnings not to try it on my own. He lived there, because he could not afford living elsewhere - much of his income was eaten by high health care cost of a member of his family. Since there is no such thing in Kenya as public health insurance, families pool resources to pay medical bills if someone gets sick.
It looks like many people are in similar situation - they work and live in slums because they cannot afford anything else. It seems that "structural adjustment" policies pursued by the United States and its extension the IMF destroyed much of the meager public services there, and contributed to misery.
However, the main problem is corruption that pervades every aspect of life there. This is evident even in the bush. When you visit the National Park in Nairobi, it takes about 2 hours to obtain proper passes - which employ heave security measures, including embedded computer chips, to prevent theft.
Corruption and nepotism determine access to every economic resource, from farm land to political power. Corruption and nepotism seems endemi in this part of the world, see for example Richard Kapuscinski, _The Emperor: downfall of an autocrat_ HBJ, 1983 (based on interviews with members of the Haile Selassie court).
Wojtek