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There are few generalisations that can be made about Africa, but the huge thirst for knowledge and information throughout the continent is almost certainly one that can. In the past access to written information in Africa has been primarily through printed books. To Western visitors the limited number of books in shops, libraries, and school environments leaps out. A publishing sector that has been limited by lack of investment capital, a large but poor population, and difficult logistics, particularly in rural areas, means that the need for books is not matched by the level of availability and accessibility of books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private sector development (PSD) has emerged as a core component of donor strategies aimed at making free markets work for ‘the poor’ through assistance to business sector capacity in low-income states. PSD initiatives cannot be understood, however, as technical exercises aimed solely at promoting development through business competitiveness. Instead they serve as normative concessions through which developmentally questionable market-opening has been rationalised by donors in pursuit of lucrative commercial opportunities in emerging economies. Examining the European Union's (EU) PSD framework in bilateral relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, the article examines the utilisation of PSD discourse in the ‘development branding’ of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). PSD discourse is seen to facilitate a ‘double-veiling’ of asymmetric ACP–EU trade ties via legitimising images of equitable market-opening and the trickle-down of business wealth to ‘the poor’. Nevertheless, the reality of reciprocal trade structures combined with Europe's anaemic PSD resources bears little resemblance to the strategic illusions of PSD. In particular, the interventions of Europe's Centre for the Development of Enterprise (CDE) in cotton and textiles sectors in East Africa are seen to have dubious outcomes for ‘development’ in ACP former colonies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]