Dambisa Moyo

My mother is chairman of a bank called the Indo-Zambia Bank. It's a joint venture between Zambia and India. My father runs Integrity Foundation, an anticorruption organization.

The fact of the matter is that instead of going around the world and haranguing countries for engaging with China, the West should be encouraging its own businesses to trade and invest in these regions.

If I go to Singapore, I have friends there. If they came to Zambia, they'd feel the same way. I've made connections, and I have friends in many, many countries.

I don't think my background in Zambia has really affected my lens because my classical training has been Western-style. But it's fantastically fortuitous to have been born African because I don't feel I have a vested interest to the U.S. or China or wherever.

The people I admire unreservedly are my parents. They are the real pioneers of Africa in many ways. They were born and raised in rural Africa during the colonial period. They are the ones who came to the U.S. long before I did.

I was born and raised in Zambia in 1969. At the time of my birth, blacks were not issued birth certificates, and that law only changed in 1973.

Under the all-encompassing aid system, too many places in Africa continue to flounder under inept, corrupt and despotic regimes who spend their time courting and catering to the demands of the army of aid organizations.

China is attempting the death-defying feat, which no one has attempted in the history of the world, which is to move a billion people out of poverty. When I speak to Chinese policy-makers, the thing that annoys them the most about Western policy-makers is that they're not given any credit for anything.

There are tons of examples of U.K. and European mistakes. A classic one is pensions. That's obviously not an America-specific thing. The British and European economies are suffering under the weight of what is to come. The next great Ponzi scheme after Madoff is probably pensions.

A nascent economy needs a transparent and accountable government and an efficient civil service to help meet social needs. Its people need jobs and a belief in their country's future. A surfeit of aid has been shown to be unable to help achieve these goals.

Dead Aid' is about the inefficacy and the limitations of large-scale aid programs in creating economic growth and reducing poverty in Africa.

I have dedicated many years to economic study, up to the Ph.D. level, to analyze and understand the inherent weaknesses of aid and why aid policies have consistently failed to deliver on economic growth and poverty alleviation.