The Business of Poverty in Africa: Inside the Travel Philanthropy System

Scarth, Amy; Novelli, Marina

Abstract

This timely and thought-provoking book critically explores key theories, concepts and contemporary issues associated with the travel philanthropy phenomenon and within the debates of sustainable development in Africa. Since the Band Aid era in 1984, and alongside the rise of the international aid and NGO sector, global travel and tourism has considerably expanded into the African continent and with it, face-to-face philanthropy too.

By drawing on the authors’ extensive experience in the field of sustainable development and the African continent, and by using empirical evidence from case studies in Uganda, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, a systems approach is employed to explain the complexity of travel philanthropy as a growing exchange economy within tourism in Africa and the importance of considering the influence of multi-stakeholder perspectives. Through an interdisciplinary lens framed by a critical realism philosophy, this book provides a thorough investigation and new understanding of travel philanthropy as a system, challenging myopic views of gift-giving and gift-receiving practices in Africa.

Key system outputs reveal emerging moral dilemmas within gift-giving, leading to a call for adequate policy and practice interventions for the advancement of sustainable development. Incorporating observable and unobservable phenomena as matters of causality, a new conceptual model is presented, which redefines how impacts of travel philanthropy may be conceptualised and approached. By doing so the analysis offers significant insight into the real-world complexity of gift-giving and aid interventions through tourism, and how it differentiates from other forms of aid. The research presented in this book provides a solid basis to inform strategies for more effective and ethical pathways to gift-giving/receiving engagements, responsible tourism business management practices in Africa, and contributes to wider debates concerning international aid and donors’ intervention implications in African contexts.

This book is a valuable resource for the tourism industry, policy makers, development professionals, students, researchers, academics in tourism, geography, business and management, economics, international development studies, anthropology, sociology, area studies, and applied ethics.

Citation

Scarth, A., & Novelli, M. (2025). The Business of Poverty in Africa: Inside the Travel Philanthropy System. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003497929

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Online Publication Date: Apr 30, 2025
• Publication Date: Apr 30, 2025
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2025
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• ISBN: 9781032806501
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003497929
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/48355011
• Publisher URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003497929/business-poverty-africa-amy-scarth-marina-novelli
• Contract Date: Jan 29, 2024