Books
Dead Aid
Moyo’s first book, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa (2009) argues that government-to-government foreign aid has harmed Africa and should be phased out. It became a New York Times bestseller, and has been published in Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch.
The Financial Times summarized the book’s argument, stating “Limitless development assistance to African governments, [Moyo] argues, has fostered dependency, encouraged corruption and ultimately perpetuated poor governance and poverty.” The book suggests that official development assistance (ODA), as opposed to humanitarian aid, perpetuates the cycle of poverty and hinders economic growth in Africa. The book offers developing countries proposals for financing development instead of relying on foreign government-to-government aid. Harvard professor and historian Niall Ferguson wrote the foreword to Dead Aid. Rwandan president Paul Kagame wrote that “Dead Aid has given us an accurate evaluation of the aid culture today.”
In a review of the book, economist Paul Collier stated, “Aid is not a very potent instrument for enhancing either security or accountability. Our obsession with it has detracted from the more important ways in which we can promote development: peacekeeping, security guarantees, trade privileges, and governance.” The pro-aid organization ONE Campaign disagreed with the book, stating that it calls to “cut-off all aid”. Moyo has pointed out in a number of interviews that this is a misrepresentation of her ideas and that she is not criticizing humanitarian aid, and the Financial Times noted that ONE’s campaign “at least partially backfired”. The economist Jeffrey Sachs said more foreign aid is needed to improve conditions for Africa, but Moyo pointed out that when Sachs was her lecturer at Harvard it was he himself who taught that “the path to long-term development would only be achieved through private sector involvement and free market solutions”.
In a 2013 interview Bill Gates was asked for his views on Dead Aid‘s illustration that aid to African governments has not alleviated poverty but has instead kept the African economy crippled rather than supporting sustainable African business. He claimed to have read the book and stated “books like that – they’re promoting evil”. Responding on her website, Moyo stated “To cast aside the arguments I raised in Dead Aid at a time when we have witnessed the transformative economic success of countries like China, Brazil and India, belittles my experiences, and those of hundreds of millions of Africans”.
How the West Was Lost
Moyo’s second book, How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – And the Stark Choices that Lie Ahead (2010), gives an account of the decline of the economic supremacy of the West over the past 50 years, and posits that the world’s most advanced economies are squandering their economic lead. In her opinion, Moyo examines how America’s flawed decisions and blinkered policy choices around capital, labor, and technology have resulted in an economic and geopolitical seesaw that is poised to tip in favor of the emerging world.
The book became a New York Times bestseller, debuting at No. 6. It also debuted at No. 4 in the Washington Post, and No. 2 in the Wall Street Journal‘s and Nielsen BookScan’s business bestsellers.
In a review, Paul Collier stated that “her diagnosis of the recent disasters in financial markets is succinct and sophisticated”, and “I applaud her brave alarum against our economic and social complacency: her core concerns are sufficiently close to painful truths to warrant our attention.” Dominic Lawson wrote in The Sunday Times, “This argument … can rarely have been made more concisely…. Moyo is a very serious lady indeed.” The Guardian stated, “How the West Was Lost is more interesting, wider in scale and more important than Dead Aid.”
In contrast, Alan Beattie of the Financial Times wrote, “The challenges it identifies are for the most part real, if not original. But the huge flaws of the emerging economies are ignored.” The Economist said “these arguments need much better supporting material than the book provides”.
Winner Take All
Moyo’s third book, Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What It Means for the World (2012), examines the commodity dynamics that the world will face over the next several decades, according to Moyo. In particular, it explores the implications of China’s rush for natural resources across all regions of the world. Noting that the scale of China’s resource campaign for hard commodities (metals and minerals) and soft commodities (timber and food) is one of the largest in history, Moyo presents her research and conclusions concerning the financial and geopolitical implications of a world of diminishing resources. Winner Take All continues where How the West Was Lost left off, and Moyo argues that China is already well on the way to gaining the upper hand in world economic dominance.
Winner Take All became a New York Times bestseller, debuting at No. 13, as well as entering the Wall Street Journal‘s and Nielsen BookScan’s business bestsellers at No. 4 and the Publishers Weekly nonfiction bestseller list at No. 11.
A review in the Financial Times stated that “If Dambisa Moyo is right, the demands of the world’s most populous state are bad news for the rest of us…. One cannot accuse Moyo of failing to do her homework.” The Independent concluded, “This is not an elegantly written book…. But she does go to the heart of the issue: what China does over resources is profoundly important, and that deserves our attention.”
The Telegraph commented “Moyo thinks [China’s impact on the global commodity market] will go on and on, powered by an unstoppable Chinese economy. Perhaps she is right, but the grounds for doubting whether the future will be a straight line from the past deserve a hearing.” The Guardian wrote, “for all Moyo’s insistence that a crisis is inevitable and that China will be the only gainer, we are in uncertain territory here.”
Additional publications and lectures
Moyo is a frequent public speaker and columnist. She has written for international financial and economic journals and other periodicals and publications, and has lectured worldwide at some of the world’s financial and economic summits, forums and conferences, as well as at numerous venues including TEDTalks and BBC‘s HARDtalk. She is also a commentator on networks such as CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, BBC, and Fox Business. She was one of the seven judges of the 2015 Financial Times and McKinsey Best Business Book Award. Some of her recent articles are:
- “A Call Against Complacency”. ChangeThis (9 March 2011)
- “The Resource Shortage Is Real”. TIME (8 June 2012)
- “Beijing, a Boon for Africa”. New York Times (27 June 2012)
- “Forget the BRICs; Zambia, Estonia and Pakistan are the place for alpha investors”. Quartz (12 March 2013)
- “Delivery Lessons from China”. McKinsey & Company’s Voices on Society (April 2013)
- “A Grand Unified Economic Theory?”. Project Syndicate (13 November 2013)
- “For Poor Countries, China is No Model”. Wall Street Journal (19 September 2014)
- “Creating a Global Framework for Immigration”. McKinsey & Company’s Insights & Publications (January 2015)
- “Not Enough Bad News is Priced into the Financial Markets”. Financial Times (27 March 2015)
- “What Leaders Can Learn from a Long Run”. Wall Street Journal (18 April 2015)
- “Will Technology Support Global Growth?”. Global Drucker Forum (25 May 2015)
- “Whose job is it to create the new jobs for the tech era?”. Financial Times (12 June 2015)
