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Author Dambisa Moyo in Conversation with William Easterly
A conversation between Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and William Easterly, New York University
New York University, New York City
Thursday, March 26, 2009
In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts a great myth: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined, while millions continue to suffer. Drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which an overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty. Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, she offers a bold new road map for financing the development of the world's poorest countries.
Dambisa Moyo is the former head of economic research and strategy for sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs. Previously, she worked at the World Bank in Washington D.C. and was a co-author of its annual World Development Report. She holds a doctorate in economics from Oxford University and a master's degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia.
William Easterly is professor of economics and co-director of the Development Research Institute at New York University. He is co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics and the author of The White Man's Burden: How the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics.