Humanosphere is on hiatus. Many thanks to our web design, development and hosting partner Culture Foundry for keeping the site active while we plan our next move. You will remember from yesterday , that Bill Gates is not a fan of Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo see below video.
Well, it turns out that Moyo is not happy with what Gates has to say about her book. Moyo issued a pithy response to what she described as a personal attack by Gates. The short blog post makes two points to refute the remarks made by Gates. First, Moyo says that the book serves as a debating point on aid. She says that both she and Gates agree on the goal to improve the livlihoods of Africans in a sustainable way.
Her goal was to raise concerns about the limitations of aid. She concludes that her experience being raised in Zambia provides her with a unique first-hand insight into poverty in Africa and the impacts of aid. It is the very same selling point that Moyo used in promoting her book. Economists have cited problems in the economic conclusions made by Moyo and pointed out that some points lack factual evidence.
The proposition to immediately cut aid has huge ramifications if it is considered given the impact it would have on the lives of individual people, argued Owen Barder of the Center for Global Development, in his review of the book. If Moyo is wrong and people follow her advice, the results can be devastating. Zambian economist Chola Mukanga came to similar conclusions in her review of the book, also citing a lack of evidence and calling the proposed solutions by the book ineffective.
Colombia academic and aid superstar Jeff Sachs took umbrage with claims made by Moyo, in a Huffington Post blog post. He criticized Moyo and other aid critics, including Easterly, for their narrow views on aid and use of government funding for research. I begrudge them trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind. Before peddling their simplistic concoction of free markets and self-help, they and we should think about the realities of life, in which all of us need help at some time or other and in countless ways, and even more importantly we should think about the life-and-death consequences for impoverished people who are denied that help.
