The book covers seven countries, three in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and the Sudan) and four in West Africa (Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal). The thirteen chapters contain a wealth of material which indicates clearly that irrigation projects and settlement schemes usually have not even met their production goals. More generally, government policies and projects have tended to increase inequality and have had little impact on reducing rural poverty. More often than not, the government has represented interests other than those of the rural poor and it is hardly surprising, therefore, that public intervention has in practice been harmful to the majority of rural people rather than beneficial. As the Warden of Queen Elizabeth House it was my privilege to sponsor this work and provide modest facilities. The African Studies Committee of the University of Oxford and the George Webb Medley Fund gave financial support to cover some of the expenses of the seminar. In addition to the authors of the chapters, the following also attended the seminar and contributed to the discussions: Raymond Apthorpe, Ian Carruthers, Paul Clough, Tim Dottridge, Eve Hall, Jocelyn Jones, Richard Palmer-Jones, Andrew Pearse, Chris Robbins, Terry Spens, and Anne Whitehead. Daphne Snell helped organise the seminar and subsequently assisted in typing the papers; Louise Henry and Muriel Knowles also helped type papers and prepare the final manuscript.