American Billionaire vs. African Woman Economist

Last March at the Skoll World Forum I had a chance to see Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo, author of the book “ Dead Aid”, debate a fellow panelist from the US government’s aid agency, USAID, on the merits of foreign development aid. The image of an African telling the American official “stop giving us money” and the American saying “let me keep giving it to you” was quite striking. The crux of Moyo’s argument is that international aid enables corruption and makes African government leaders more accountable to the World Bank than to their own people.

Well a couple of months later, Bill Gates called Moyo’s book “promoting evil.”  The ironies abound: Gates made his billions in the private market and, himself, fought Big Government’s anti-trust actions against Microsoft.  And Moyo, the Zambian woman, is the one arguing for small government.

I think this debate has much more nuance. Much aid has proven effective, especially in health. Furthermore, we can’t throw private and government aid into the same bucket. On the other hand, Swiss banks are chock full of stolen government aid. Setting aside the fine points, I like how Dambisa Moyo is taking on the status quo, which still includes an unsavory co-dependency between rich and developing countries.