This is a firsthand account of what really goes on in the world of international development assistance. Samia Altaf, senior official in the Department of Health in Washington DC, was caught up as a consultant in a huge World Bank-funded project to improve the abysmal conditions in the social sector in Pakistan. The project ended in much-publicized disaster-corruption, controversy, non-delivery, and an official fraud inquiry. This book is an engrossing and honest eyewitness account of why international aid fails more often than it succeeds in developing countries.