Charlie Rose

NinaNais  06/20/2012 04:48 AM Report

Charlie obviously could not understand Dambisa. And by that I don't mean that he didn't comprehend her arguments, but that someone like her is just completely outside of his worldview and all his familiar paradigms. You can see it in the questions that he's asking. E.g. he starts out with a question of how she grew up in Zambia, and then ended up getting a PhD at Oxford. Obviously expecting some cutesy triumphalist story of the deprived African girl from an impoverished illiterate family who was somehow aided (by charity or otherwise) to get an education and after many struggles ended up at Oxford. For her to talk in such a matter-of-fact manner about her linguist father coming to America to do a Masters and PhD and her Harvard masters to match her Oxford PhD, obviously threw him for a loop. Just the fact that there are many Africans with (or without) educated parents, studying in first class Western universities would not have occurred to him. These are the kinds of attitudes that Dambisa faces in making her argument about Dead Aid. That is, well-intentioned people who are so inculcated with the World Vision charity version of Africa, and the idea that it is right and good to give aid to the needy barefoot Africans, that they find it very difficult to wrap their minds around the idea of Africa as a continent with young, intelligent, entrepreneurial populations, who want investment and employment instead of charity, who should be able to hold their govts to account, who deserve representation, as well as taxation, from their own govts.

Mwenda  05/08/2012 03:28 AM Report

I agree with Dambisa. That bilateral aid is not quite solving the problems in Africa. Look at where Kenya was in the Moi era. What has Kibaki done?He introduced policies that spurred growth,investment. His policies have made it possible for people to create their own wealth,without reliance on aid. Again I agree that African governments need to be put on the spot. They are the ones answerable to the people,to the world. As she says,the fact that 'outsiders' are the ones answering questions on behalf of Africa is the source of pity. However, aid is still essential. I just think that it should be directed at target groups and should not be bilateral.

r_sheehan  02/26/2010 05:43 AM Report

After watching, 'Behind the Rainbow', I think that we can, as a country, and world, can learn and grow from the recognition that the trials of South Africa and Africa in general, are essentially a replication of the struggle of democracy here in the U.S.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, we are not moved to respond as quickly as the "oppressed" in South Africa have in their very "short", "democratic" history.

The government that gained power by the people quickly lost touch with what their goals were. They instead, left their cause for the power and greed that were so readily present.

It seems like S. Africa may come to a solution much quicker than ourselves; based on how quickly they caught up to us in political "turmoil".

Has anyone posed these problems to any "think tanks"?

We know what the pitfalls are; we know what the majority desire. Can we figure out a way to get from where we are to where we want to be and avoid the pitfalls?

With this point in mind; I think we need to come to some understanding, that not every voice can be heard. Individuals, or small groups, may have their differences recognized; but with sufficient discussion, come to the weigh their needs against the needs of their community, people, country, or species.

BobSample  07/08/2009 12:05 AM Report

Thanks for this fascinating interview, Charlie. Dr. Moyo shows a deep understanding of the economies in her native Africa, but I believe her critique of foreign aid does not recognize the good that has been accomplished along with the harm.

I have not yet read Dr. Moyo’s book, so I will not comment on her proposed solutions beyond the observation that “free market” approaches such as “liberalization” of imports and exports, focus on cash crops in agriculture, strict control of government spending, especially on education and healthcare, privatization of ports and airports, postal systems, water systems, and more do not have a very good track record. Such policies were imposed by the World Bank and IMF as a condition of loans and are widely credited with contributing to the decline of African economies in the 1990s.

Dr. Moyo is lumping all development assistance in the same basket and condemning it unnecessarily. For example, it is somewhat disingenuous of conservatives to criticize foreign aid for failing to create growth in African economies in recent years and to alleviate poverty, when for 40 years of the Cold War, the true purpose of foreign aid, as espoused by conservatives, was to buy the allegiance of governments, usually dictatorial governments, in the global fight against the Soviet Union. During the entire period of the Cold War, scant attention was paid to grassroots development issues that would benefit the poor. And where development “projects” were entertained, they usually involved massive amounts of dollars and huge construction projects that were designed to curry favor with the elites of a country and which almost never responded to any needs of the poorest people at the bottom of most “Third World” societies. So most of the $1 trillion dollars in aid mentioned by Dr. Moyo was never intended to end poverty or help struggling economies to become independent. To criticize foreign aid over the last 60 years without admitting this major issue is deceptive at best, downright dishonest at worst.

For a somewhat more sinister version of this thesis, see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, who makes the point that the additional purpose of aid was to create dependency, supported by massive debt, in order to guarantee allegiance of poor-country governments during the Cold War.

As a development advocate favoring cost-effective approaches that work, I assert that a small part of “foreign aid” has worked very well. It is less that 20% of the overall Foreign Aid budget on any given year. I am referring to expenditures in particular on global health, sustainable agriculture, microfinance, and more recently, education for all.

In the 1980s and 1990s, for a pittance in money, with U.S. leadership and funding, the world succeeded at immunizing over 80% of the world’s children against major childhood diseases such as measles, whooping cough, tetanus, and polio, while mounting child survival campaigns that educated families on the use of simple salt and sugar solutions to avoid diarrheal dehydration and bed nets to avoid malaria. UNICEF estimates that over 3 million children’s lives are saved each year from these measures, and the overall infant mortality rate from preventable poverty-related causes has plunged from 40,000 per day 25 years ago to about 28,000 per day today.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria has become, in 7 short years, the major provider of prevention, treatment, and cure for these three conjoined pandemics of poverty. The U.S. has spent a few billion over the lifespan of the organization, which has been matched 2 for 1 by other donor countries. The Global Fund’s approach is a whole new way of conducting multilateral foreign aid – national plans must be developed by requesting countries and all levels of society, from the government to the grassroots, and representatives of all stakeholders, including patients and local doctors, must be involved in the planning, the application, the management of programs, the expenditure of funds, and the monitoring of progress on a regular basis. During these past few years, as a result of Global Fund efforts and a few other aligned efforts, we have seen the substantial slowing of the AIDS pandemic, the dramatic reduction of the TB pandemic, and the substantial reduction of malaria deaths worldwide. Millions of people are now alive, including millions of children, as a result of this relatively modest expenditure of foreign aid funds.

There have been a growing number of aid efforts aimed at supporting sustainable agriculture and many other basic sustainable approaches that have resulted in a massive amount of sustainable economic activity among the poor and the poorest of the poor around the world. The major approach that has led to sustainability for millions is microfinance, arguably the most successful and cost effective development approach of all time. The U.S. has made a modest contribution of $200 million per year over the past few years as an effort to jumpstarting and help with expansion of microfinance programs. These funds are constantly recycled since much of their use is for loan funds that are loaned out and repaid at interest and then loaned out again and again. In New York, in February of this year, the Microcredit Summit Campaign hosted a celebration to acknowledge the achievement of the 10-year goal to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families with microcredit (see www.microcreditsummit.org). Millions of families in Africa, Asia, Latin America and throughout the world have now moved above the $1 per day poverty level. While, this does not mean they have reached the middle class, they can now can afford basic housing and sanitation, basic clothing, sufficient food to maintain a healthy life, and access to healthcare so that babies don’t die from every preventable cause and mothers don’t die in childbirth.

Finally, in recent years, modest amounts of U.S. foreign aid have been spent on the growing movement to have all the world’s children in school by the year 2015. A “fast tracks” effort, similar to the Global Fund approach, has been mounted in many countries that requires comprehensive planning, citizen involvement, and accountability. In fact, there is now a movement to create a multi-lateral Global Fund for Education modeled after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Education for All campaigns are coupled with efforts to do away with the World Bank and IMF requirements for loan recipient countries to charge school fees in a misguided effort to fund educational institutions by making the families of students, even extremely impoverished families, pay for their children’s education. In Kenya, when school fees were eliminated recently, over 1 million children swamped the schools. Subsequently, education support from targeted foreign aid has helped Kenya to train and hire thousands of new teachers.

Knowledgeable readers will recognize that the successful foreign aid approaches above are aimed at achieving Millenium Development Goals #1 - to cut absolute poverty in half by 2015, #2 - to have all children in school by 2015, and #6 - to cut AIDS and other infectious diseases in half by 2015. These goals, while a huge stretch, are achievable with a combination of foreign aid funding, host government funding, corporate funding, and private donor funding, along with a concerted effort on the part of those affected to help themselves.

Few people believe that foreign aid is a panacea. Far from it. In many ways, much of U.S.foreign aid is either spent on non-development approaches such as military equipment or security training, or frankly wasted on big capital intensive projects that have almost universally failed, or tied to U.S. consultants, U.S. products and services, or U.S. transportation that end up getting the majority of the funds.

Dr. Moyo is right that much foreign aid of the past, especially during the Cold War, created dependency and stifled initiative and creativity. In fact, it was frequently designed to do so.

The U.S. foreign assistance approach needs to be dramatically reformed, not eliminated. Priority should be placed first and foremost on poverty elimination and creating growth in local economies. Additional goals should be to enhance self-sufficiency among the poorest recipients, and to provide services and support that is cost-effectiveness, accountable, and transparent.

Bob Sample

Denver, Colorado

bbsample@ix.netcom.com

Demosthenes  05/26/2009 12:55 PM Report

Essentially, the Economist is right. The debate for/against Official Development Aid (ODA), of which the prominent protagonists are Jeffrey Sachs on the one hand and William Easterly on the other, is not a new one. I think that the danger for missing the point of the debate is to pigeonhole Moyo and Easterly’s position as being to cut off development assistance (e.g. debt relief, technology sharing, and NGO-involvement, micro-finance, etc.), which is what those in the miserly corner might advocate.

While it has been slow to develop in the public arena (why has William Easterly never been at Charlie Rose’s table?), I think that the critics of aid have made their point and made it well. Sachs and Bono have had their noses bloodied. Those seriously studying development policy are fully aware of this debate and are looking for a way to get beyond it.

So let’s move beyond the dichotomy as Charlie attempted to do. Okay, so ODA has its problems – what’s next? Moyo and Easterly are probably right, and benign neglect by the West may be better than what we have now. But is benign neglect what they will get if they have their way with respect to ending ODA? There is such a thing as malignant neglect too (e.g. continued trade barriers, focusing technological efforts on western problems alone, insisting of the payment of usurious debts, etc.).

Can we not have benign, honest and intelligent assistance from the West? Certainly, we must reform Western aid agencies, such as the World Bank and the IMF. Those who are to be the beneficiaries of development policy need to have a privileged voice at the table, rather than little more than a tolerated voice. Let’s have that synthesizing debate, rather than the thesis and antithesis of aid or no aid.

njoroge  04/12/2009 07:49 PM Report

Hmm good interview, have to find and read the book. seems like the lady is very smart - some postings here have suggested she does not offer good enough solutions, maybe so but lets read the book first and then judge her.

Would say the only reason Aid does not work for Africa is that it (foreign aid) is not meant to work. Case in point China, so if Africa was to become developed then that would lead to massive competition for resources that the current super powers would not want to share. Now days every time you turn around we are told oil is expensive cause of china's demand.

Global warming, geez the industrialized countries did bad but now china is making it worse... and on and on

So Aid to Africa is not meant to lead to any development, that would be "bad" for ah everyone!!

Let me know what you think

gillg  04/06/2009 02:33 PM Report

Very nice interview. However, it's interesting to read several people that see Moyo's stance, and indeed aid itself, as a right/wrong issue. True, aid has failed in many ways (specifically local economic development), and it has also achieved success in many ways (specifically in advancing international political interests and the careers of several useless economists, but also in advancing issues surrounding human rights). This argument should not be for supporting aid or not, but about the ways in which African 'governance' can be improved for the material well-being of people. Aid is sometimes necessary where markets care not to tread. not even teh Grameen bank and microfinance goes everywhere. Many of Moyo's comments and reviewers indicate that she is proposing radical market solutions for African societies. These/her solutions have failed in the same way that aid has failed. I think both Sachs and Moyo have simplified their arguments about Africa to the point where they are useless. Like Sachs' calls for African aid, market solutions are also ignorant of local contexts and naive in their understanding of the market. Sachs himself proved this in Russia. For example, Moyo should identify who exactly would take on the risk of buying bonds from the DRC or Tchad? Aid organizations?

Just because she is from an elite African family (via America, Oxford, and other elite institutions) doesn't mean she gets what is going on in Africa. Most aggrievous is Moyo's citation of Hernando de Soto which, from the perspective of someone involved in land law, shows an absolute ignorance of the issues surrounding good governance in local contexts, specifically Africa. De Soto's suggestion that we can waltz in and give land titles to everyone and immediately have a mortgage market are rarely good for rural areas are(1) ultimately based on a flawed historical argument about the USA (2) fail to understand how this process usually benefits corrupt elites (3) fail to recognize that markets don't just appear and that people (even with land title) don't want to sell or mortgage their heritage and future security.

While she was an interesting interview, it is easy to see where the politicos will take her... Her comments are just going to be used by the likes of the WSJ and others to argue for cuts in aid, not for more thoughtful development.

Shaft  03/28/2009 04:28 PM Report

The problem with Africa is becoming apparent as time passes by, and more and more Africans are speaking out. As Miss Moyo articulates it openly, it is a clear indication that Africa must not be looked at in the same prisom as we look at other developing or semi-developing continents, such as Asia and Latin America. The pressing issue for Africa is overpopulation and there must be a way to deal with is now or we may miss the wagon for good. Donor countries need to start looking at the actual problem rather than a lucrative income generating jobs for NGO representatives. All donations toward Africa should be of contraceptive and other family planning materials; unless we start doing that we will miss the chance to help these people. Their countries economic status is not growing to match their population growth, in ten years time Africa will be a problem that cannot be rehabilitated. By then the population will be so huge and the farmers will be so few and unprofitable, thanks to Western farmer growing quality grains we will not be able to help them. We have to start now; the new administration in Washington should focus on helping Africa not in medicine or food, but in helping honest African governments with controlling their populations to match the economic growth. Sixty years and counting the African countries only grew in population, NOT in economic status. What are we doing, -pouring more fuel to the fire???

As an African I feel the Western model of helping Africa is killing more of our people now and the rest are going to be immersed into a never ending war for the resources and ethnic killings. Population growth is exponential, but economic growth is non-existence. I wish for the Obama administration to look at the situation in a different lens than the previous many administrations. I have a feeling that if the situation continues the way it is, Africa will be raped by the Indians and Chinese, and the Western society will feel sad for not reading the problem properly in the first place. With respect to Mr. Sachs, tell him to abandon his long held racist beliefs and start looking at the problem the way we would like him to, which is OVERPOPULATION!

hrc  03/28/2009 12:01 AM Report

Surprisingly good show segment. Israel is another example to illustrate her point in an oblique way. At the end of the show we are encouraged to visit Israel, and shoot some ragged terrorists posing as people, weapons will be provided by some foundation or other nation or corporation. You will feel cleansed thereafter, refreshed and whole. The chosen people will bless you and you will have secured your place in heaven. This show fragmentation must stop though, please.

IRISH  03/27/2009 10:00 PM Report

Dambisa Moyo was an excellent interview and fully expect that the proposed follow-up for an entire interview/round table would be even more educational for many Westerners.Development aid has always benefited the donors more than the recipients.

myke  03/27/2009 04:11 PM Report

REMant, America is now coming to grips with a female sexuality that is black, wanting, and no longer solicitous of white men. Now, that could take some getting used to. Charlie's discomfort was palpable. Yet I can think of no two people more deserving of the sanctum: A coupling of Charlie's work with Dambisa's clear understanding of what is to be done in Africa. But first, there has to be an awakening. He must be allowed to smell the blood and rediscover his own blackness. His consonance with the rest of humanity.

winter  03/27/2009 01:20 AM Report

Something noone ever talks about is who profits from Africa's natural resources? Obviously native Africans don't. Most informed people know of the early DeBeers usurpation of diamonds from South Africa. The shantytowns would probably be pounded into suburban developements if the profits from strategic metals, precious metals gemstones and God knows what else remained with Africa the way oil profits have enhanced the quality of life for the peoples of Saudi Arabia and Brunei. The heart of darkness remains forever.

msp  03/27/2009 12:15 AM Report

It's great to see an African woman engaging in these debates. But unfortunately she's not a very good social scientist...just because aid has (obviously) not produced economic growth in Africa does not mean that it is the cause of Africa's poor economic performance. And the solution that she proposes--tapping into international capital markets--is laughable. Let us not forget that the debt crisis of the 1980s was largely caused by countries borrowing excessively on private capital markets, and the financial crises that rocked emerging markets in the 1990s were in part a product of the financial liberalization that would be required for African countries to tap into international capital markets. I suppose that this solution is not a surprising proposal from someone that worked at Goldman Sachs for so many years.

vanron100  03/26/2009 11:31 PM Report

Wow Charlie, a voice of reason...yes please bring her back.

Too often when we in the western world talk about aid in terms of $$$...it means items like $10B to Pakistan used to buy American military planes - this aid does not help the people of Pakistan nor improve their ability to deal with terrorist...looks to much like increasing the profits to this military manufacturers.

Looing forward to her next appearance.

chairup  03/26/2009 09:35 PM Report

Ohh yeah, Charlie do a follow up interview with those other guests. Every time you have have folks like this I right away go to the library and get their book. Well, "Dead Aid" I will have to request this book, or maybe buy it. I want to be prepared for the coming up interview you are going to have with Dambisa Moyo. What an intelligent nice looking, spokes person for Africa's turn around. People like Dambisa face down the issues, and good looking too, that is a great combination for Africa. Thanks Chuck

GlobalEctropy  03/26/2009 08:23 PM Report

Hi Charlie,

I want to congratulate you on this entire episode! It was absolutely fascinating.

I have not read the book so I might be speaking completely out of context but I am always concerned when there are broad generalizations concerning Africa. It is a continent, not a cohesive set of countries. One would not create a unified policy for the US, Canada and Mexico. This is something that seems to be often missed in discussions about Africa and I think it is one of the roots of the problem. Countries are being lumped into one-size fits all solutions that have proven to be counterproductive more often than not.

With respect to large multinational donor agencies. While it appears that there is deliberate obtuseness at times, my personal belief is that the problem arises from bureaucracies that are too large to manage effectively so the normal organizational management issues come up (left hand doesn't talk to right hand (sometimes thumb cannot talk to index finger). Even in groups that have a country desk, you wonder if anyone consulted the country desk before determining a policy prescriptive (e.g. I've been told but can't find reference off hand, I believe it was World Bank, that wanted to increase capacity building educational funding in Uganda, this naturally involves training teachers, however money could not be used to this end because another World Bank directive mandated that funding could not go to pay salaries of civil servants and teachers in Uganda are classified as civil servants). You then have the complexities of organization A talking to B. Sometimes there are competing interests. To put this in perspective, what if one were to ask Microsoft and Apple to design a unified intervention strategy for improving the use of computers in public schools......? Arguments that I have heard chastising aid seem to completely ignore organizational theory and organizational behavior. Often what seem like deliberate misdeeds are nothing more than the inevitable, to quote the children's book, "series of unfortunate events." This does not make them excusable, BUT, until we deal with these issues it doesn't matter what approach we use, it will not be effective.

You also mentioned in your program note that you will be interviewing Bill Gates and Bill Gates Sr. I am absolutely marveled and grateful for all the effort and funding they are channeling towards Africa. At the same time I am curious to know how they would respond to the AGRA concerns being raised in the Oakland Institute's Voices from Africa report http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/ Taking the business angle again, what value do they see in GMO seeds when these astronomically distort the small farmer's business model by escalating the price of inputs? In my opinion, it would be the equivalent of asking a computer firm to pay 5 to 10 times more for the microprocessor it uses in its devices. Regardless of how good your business model is, what incentives do you have to buy such a processor?

Keep up the great dialogue and great programming! (Yes, I have been watching without registering until today - sorry.)

Cheers,

Cecilia

REMant  03/26/2009 06:36 PM Report

The thesis that foreign interference has been the cause of African problems has had a lot of proponents, and the notion of welfare dependency should be familiar to Americans from the work of Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Charles Murray. There is no doubt that poverty is the cause of overpopulation, rather than overpopulation the cause of poverty, as well. But we find ppl in so-called advanced countries continually arguing for more of the same, like Krugman's zombies. And it should not come as any great surprise that it originates from the same sort-of people who are advancing the same kind of thesis about our own problems. That Charlie seems clearly enamored of the latter even after all he has heard about them, means he either hasn't yet made the connection, or the attitude is so firmly set in his character that it may be impossible to dislodge. From the friction evident in this interview and some apparent editing, it seems he did not at all like this attractive, sincere and able young woman. But she is right. I'm sure she is not arguing for more Robert Mugabe's or Charles Taylor's, but these are problems that while we have had a big hand in creating, the 3d world must solve. As globalization has proceeded once balanced and prospering economies have been reduced once again to providers of staples, agricultural products and raw materials - the very trend we fought for our own independence from - on top of dislocations due to their own attempts at indutrialization. And it has reduced America to this status as well, just as it had Britain, while it clung desperately to its Empire. Bondage of this sort - not too strong a word I think - harms both master and slave. The real imperative is to diagnose the psychology behind this patronizing attitude. For that we have to consider Mr Singer.

lemony  03/26/2009 05:47 PM Report

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884769,00.html

Perhaps the most compelling evidence that Africa is now a business destination is China's new love for it. While the old superpowers still agonize over Africa's poverty, the new one is captivated by its riches. Trade between Africa and China has grown an average of 30% in the past decade, topping $106 billion last year. Chinese engineers are at work across the continent, mining copper in Zambia and cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo and tapping oil in Angola. Nor is this merely exploitative. China bought its access by agreeing to create a new infrastructure for Africa, building roads, railways, hospitals and schools across the continent. The current crisis is not expected to affect China's march in Africa: on the contrary, with the West's plans in Africa on hold at best, Beijing views it as an opportunity to extend China's lead. "We will continue to have a vigorous aid program here, and Chinese companies will continue to invest as much as possible," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in South Africa in January. "It is a win-win solution." Dambisa Moyo, who wrote Dead Aid, says those who need convincing about Africa should ask themselves if they are convinced about China, "because if you back China, you're backing Africa." Ecobank CEO Ekpe says part of the explanation for China's zeal for Africa is a new way of looking at Africans. "[The Chinese] are not setting out to do good," he says. "They are setting out to do business. It's actually much less demeaning."

And that gets to what, for Africans, is the emotional heart of the matter — and why joining the business world means so much. Though it rarely occurs to Westerners who've been instructed that Africa needs their help, charity is humiliating. Not emergency charity, of course: when disaster strikes, emergency aid is always welcome, whether in New Orleans or Papua New Guinea. But long-term charity, living life as a beggar, is degrading. Andrew Rugasira, 40, runs Good African Coffee, a Ugandan company he set up in 2004 to supply British supermarkets under the motto "Trade, not aid." He is emblematic of a new generation of African antiaid, antistate entrepreneurs. For Rugasira, aid not only "undermines the creativity to lift yourself out of poverty" but also "undermines the integrity and dignity of the people. It says, These are people who cannot figure out how to develop." Aid even manages to silence those it is meant to help. "African governments become accountable to Western donors," says Rugasira, "and Africa finds itself represented not by Africans but by Bono and Bob Geldof. I mean, how would America react if Amy Winehouse dropped in to advise them on the credit crisis?"

lemony  03/26/2009 05:45 PM Report

Here is a nice article at Time.com "Africa, Business Destination"

excerpt:

Perhaps the most compelling evidence that Africa is now a business destination is China's new love for it. While the old superpowers still agonize over Africa's poverty, the new one is captivated by its riches. Trade between Africa and China has grown an average of 30% in the past decade, topping $106 billion last year. Chinese engineers are at work across the continent, mining copper in Zambia and cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo and tapping oil in Angola. Nor is this merely exploitative. China bought its access by agreeing to create a new infrastructure for Africa, building roads, railways, hospitals and schools across the continent. The current crisis is not expected to affect China's march in Africa: on the contrary, with the West's plans in Africa on hold at best, Beijing views it as an opportunity to extend China's lead. "We will continue to have a vigorous aid program here, and Chinese companies will continue to invest as much as possible," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in South Africa in January. "It is a win-win solution." Dambisa Moyo, who wrote Dead Aid, says those who need convincing about Africa should ask themselves if they are convinced about China, "because if you back China, you're backing Africa." Ecobank CEO Ekpe says part of the explanation for China's zeal for Africa is a new way of looking at Africans. "[The Chinese] are not setting out to do good," he says. "They are setting out to do business. It's actually much less demeaning."

And that gets to what, for Africans, is the emotional heart of the matter — and why joining the business world means so much. Though it rarely occurs to Westerners who've been instructed that Africa needs their help, charity is humiliating. Not emergency charity, of course: when disaster strikes, emergency aid is always welcome, whether in New Orleans or Papua New Guinea. But long-term charity, living life as a beggar, is degrading. Andrew Rugasira, 40, runs Good African Coffee, a Ugandan company he set up in 2004 to supply British supermarkets under the motto "Trade, not aid." He is emblematic of a new generation of African antiaid, antistate entrepreneurs. For Rugasira, aid not only "undermines the creativity to lift yourself out of poverty" but also "undermines the integrity and dignity of the people. It says, These are people who cannot figure out how to develop." Aid even manages to silence those it is meant to help. "African governments become accountable to Western donors," says Rugasira, "and Africa finds itself represented not by Africans but by Bono and Bob Geldof. I mean, how would America react if Amy Winehouse dropped in to advise them on the credit crisis?"

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884769,00.html

myke  03/26/2009 01:45 PM Report

The mouth is muzzled by the hand it uses to feed it. Dambisa Moyo is unmuzzled. She was educated inspite of her teachers.

Africa must be allowed to feed itself. Charlie, today, the Oak was grace by the palms of a refreshingly, sensible woman. Keep doing the work, Charlie.