I don’t want your money, its dead…and am not promoting evil…

So I am on the bus engrossed in Dambisa Moyo's "Winner Take All" when the guy seated next to me takes a keen interest in the book. Just as I flip to the next page, I hear him grunt disapproval to indicate that he had not finished reading that part. So I sigh impatiently and give him the look. You know the one that says, "if you really want this book so bad, why don't you get yourself a copy?".

"Is it a novel?" he asks me to which I shake my head in the negative.
"Its a story book...?" he persists. Forced to answer him, I explain that it is a book that examines China's role in the rush for global commodities such as minerals, oil and land. I further tell him that the book claims China is miles ahead in terms of aggressively securing these commodities to satisfy the demand for its huge population.

At this point he yanks the book from my hands, clearly ignoring the look in my eye. He tilts in order to have a good look at the author and title.

"Dambisa", he excitedly says, "that girl is talented. Did you know she is also a musician? She did a song with Petersen some time back".

This was an encounter my friend Keith Hamundyoli Hamusute had on a public bus on his many travels across the vast land of Zambia. Since the time Keith shared his experience, I have talked to a lot of people that can’t distinguish between Dambisa Moyo and Dambisa the Musician. Now, I won’t assume everyone is well vested and well equipped with information on both Dambisa’s. Depending on one’s interests, the most likely situation is that you may know one and not the other. 

Well, Dr. Dambisa Moyo is an international economist who writes on the macroeconomy and global affairs, who was born in Zambia while the latter is a popular musician who churns out ‘Zambian urban afro reggae dance hall’ music. I should be excused if that is not the correct genre of music which she does. I once read an article in the post newspaper that described her music as boostele, not that I always agreed with the particular writer but he had some interesting points of note.

Having given an ephemeral introduction of both Dambisas, the point I was trying to drive at is that, most people I have interacted with essentially know or have heard of Dambisa the musician only. I do not have an answer as to why? But I know that a lot of people in this generation do not do a lot of reading, but rather spend a lot of time in front of their television sets. You and I know that it is not every day, that writers’ faces come on TV but musicians do this every day. I am a big victim of television myself. At times I have even found myself watching “useless” TV shows like the famed reality show big brother. But Dambisa moyo is more than just a writer, she is an internationally acclaimed economist who dares trudge ground that most economists don’t want to go, and this was evident in her book ‘dead aid’. She may be an internationally acclaimed economist, but around my side of the world, Dambisa the musician is more popular. So who is Dambisa the musician?

DAMBISA is all she is known as. In my quest to know her more, I turned to google and typed “Dambisa” but all I got was information on Dambisa Moyo. But I was not prepared to hit a dead end here.

I finally ‘hit the Jackpot’, when someone gave me an extract of Dambisa’s interview in the Zambia daily mail. It was a torn piece with no much information. Nevertheless, it had enough for me to start from, and trust me every day you learn something new and I did learn quite a lot about our sexy musician.

Dambisa Michelle Lunda

It turns out that, as far back as Primary school, Dambisa's love for singing was evident. Whenever she could she was always miming to some of the music of late Michael Jackson.

With music ever blaring in their house, Dambisa credits her father for according her an opportunity to ‘sing’ with a microphone, which he acquired for her.
Besides miming and sometimes bopping to the Wacko Jacko moves, Dambisa recalls that she was also influenced with their house’s huge collection of music, which included those of P K Chishala, while Tina Turner’s rock music turned her upside down.

Dambisa tasted her real studio buzz at the Sound Check Studios around 1997, when the songbird dared the likes of Red Linso and Winston Moyo, who were recording at the same studio. “I recorded my first single titled Bwela while I was still in school at International School of Lusaka although the time I was spending at the studio had no blessings from dad,” revealed Dambisa, a fan of Maureen Lupo Lilanda and Jane Osborne’s music. Upon completing her high school, Dambisa attempted a course in Electrical Engineering at High-Tech Institute, where she also studied Computer Science between 2003 and 2006. “I also had an opportunity to work for Sunny Care in 2006 before going back into full-time music,” said the third born in a family of eight, who was born Dambisa Michelle Lunda.

Apart from the dance song of Bwela, Dambisa named the other songs as Siuliko, Okamiwa and Chuumba, while her touchy song Nalila was written as a moving dedication to her father after he passed on in 2001 on September 21. Her ragga-sauced song of Kaduka Chain is so far her only song to be nominated for any award.

“I had a brief stint with No Parking band, but I guess it was the exposure I received with Crossroads Music that gave me the urge to record my music,” said the former Bread of Life church praise team member, who had an opportunity to sing alongside late Lily T and Celtel Star Search finalist, Viola. The Crossroads Music bash in Tanzania opened new avenues for the young diva, making her a regular feature during the annual Women in Music and the International Women’s Day gigs. (Extracts from dailymail)

Before the day I was handed the newspaper extract all I knew was that she once played for ‘No Parking Band’, a band that was the center of musical entertainment at Chrisma hotel in Lusaka. I am not sure if the No parking band still plays there but I can confirm that my wife & I have driven to Chrisma on two occasions in search of some live musical entertainment only to find the place quite.

Coming back to the issue of confusing the two Dambisas, it is not only in public buses where they are confused. I once read a comment from a blogger on a certain news site with the link below; “She is an Economist? I thought she is a singer/musician who performs at Chrisma Hotel with the No Parking Band and at Kalahari Guest House with Gibson and band. She recently got engaged to that guy from Multichoice. She looks a bit different in this picture though” http://www.zambianwatchdog.com/dambisa-moyo-says-investors-scared-to-invest-in-zambia-currently/comment-page-1/

Enough said about Dambisa Michelle Lunda. Having earlier briefly introduced Dr. Dambisa Moyo, I will add that She is best known as the author of the New York Times bestsellers Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa and How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly and the Stark Choices Ahead.

Her third book, Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for the World, was published in June 2012, and also received critical acclaim.

Dr. Dambisa Moyo

In 2009, Dambisa was named by TIME Magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and to the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Forum. Her writing regularly appears in economic and finance-related publications such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Dambisa is a contributing editor to CNBC, the business and finance news network. She is a patron of Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), a hedge-fund supported children’s charity. She completed a PhD in economics at Oxford University and holds a Masters degree from Harvard University. She completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry and an MBA in finance at American University in Washington, D.C. http://www.dambisamoyo.com/biography/

In as much as I have said earlier that I knew more about Dr. Moyo than Dambisa the musician, I have only read one of her three books, ‘Dead aid’, which I got at a great fortune. I wonder why books in this part of the world are so expensive. I got to the book shop and had to debate on buying either ‘Dead Aid’ or ‘capitalist niggar’ as the money I had on me  could only buy one. I eventually settled for dead aid because Dr Moyo is closer to home in comparison to Dr Chika Onyeani… unless of course if I was Nigerian. I chose the former’s book entirely on patronage to my country and I did not regret the choice once I opened the first page of the book. Don’t get me wrong though, Dr Chika Onyeani’s book is a master class. It excels as an explosive and jarring censure of the Black Race. I am really awed at how the author is not afraid to use the most hated word, 'NIGGAR' as a title of his book. Dr Onyeani is quoted by various sources as saying, "It is not what you call me, but what I answer to, that matters most." Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, ranks the word ‘Nigger’ as "perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English.....it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry."

But could my choice of ‘dead aid’ be a yardstick for my level of patriotism? I also wonder which country Dambisa Moyo pays her allegiance to. I know for sure that prof Clive Chirwa had a British passport!

Having read Dead Aid, I find it as a thought provoking piece of economics literature. In Dead Aid Dambisa argues that development assistance is not merely a waste of money, but that it is the cause of Africa's unrelenting poverty. She conveys to the facade, the fact that billions of dollars have come into Africa in the form of aid in the same period figures of poverty in the continent have sky rocketed. Why has so much aid not made any difference?

Instead of obsessing over more aid, she proposes that, Africa should be calling for fairer trade and stepping-up efforts to attract Chinese investment. Yes more Chinese investment. Is it not the same Chinese who are said to have terrible working conditions for their workers at their factories across Africa? Dead aid is really one thought provoking book.

Dambisa Moyo is not the first economist to question aid though, is she? She is not. In my view, her book gets a lot of attention precisely because she claims that African countries (which she is a native of) are poor because of the same aid. In Ms Moyo's words, 'Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world.' In short, it is (as Karl Kraus said of Freudianism) “the disease of which it pretends to be the cure”.

Ms Moyo has reignited the debate on aid throughout the world. She has received a lot of attacks from people in all circles of life. Microsoft founder Bill Gates became the latest to attack her stance on aid. He even went further than attacking just her stance but her persona as well, by suggesting that people like her are promoting evil. Dr.Moyo did not waste any time but put up a statement on her website and within a space of a few minutes, her face book profile was also updated with the same statement.  (http://www.dambisamoyo.com/?post=dr-dambisa-moyo-responds-to-bill-gates-personal-attacks)

The link below is a youtube video of the statement Bill Gates made which warranted a quick response from Dambisa Moyo, whose statement was released less than 48 hours later.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLE327717CA0322879&v=5utDdxveaJc&feature=player_embedded)

What is my take on this ensuing feud between two highly respected opinion leaders in the world?

They are two people who both want to change the world, albeit in different ways. One is an innovative rich genius and wants to do it with his money the other is a resourceful genius and wants to do it with a visionary philosophy. In the end they both mean well. However, I do not want to dwell on the bickering as that was a wrong approach that they took. I would have loved for them to engage in debate each defending their position on aid to Africa and not the route of personal attacks.

In her response to Mr. Gates, Dambisa says and I quote only a her third paragraph, “I find it disappointing that Mr. Gates would not only conflate my arguments about structural aid with those about emergency or NGO aid, but also that he would then use this gross misrepresentation of my work to publicly attack my knowledge, background, and value system.”

Without seeking to review Dead aid, Dambisa’s book is centered on the harmful effects aid has on Africa. The kind of aid she is critiquing is official aid (from rich country governments and international organizations) directed to poor country governments. (Her book does not address private international philanthropy or humanitarian aid like disaster relief.) The kind of aid Mr Gates provides to Africa does not really come under attack from Dr. Moyo. Like my friend Libanga Ochola, put it, “as much as most people would want to condemn Gate's comments, the truth is we should be grateful to this man's efforts through the foundation (Bill & Melinda Gates).If it were not there, I dont know how Africa would be coping regarding ART,  he's a true philanthropist”.

The Bill and Melinda gates foundation (co-chaired by Bill Gates & Wife Melinda) has been very active in the health sector of poor African countries like Zambia. High-ranking delegation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, including William H. Gates, Sr., Mimi Gates, David Brandling-Bennett, Andy Voytko, Heather Flodstrom, Gabrielle Fitzgerald, and Todd Dennett, have all visited Zambia to learn firsthand about malaria and tuberculosis in Africa. These delegations have meetings meet with government officials to learn how the country is addressing the diseases; as well as meeting a range of malaria control partners. The question though is, where does this sought of philanthropy aid end and when does official government to government aid begin?

Malaria No More is a programme determined to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015. Mr Gates, through the foundation he chairs has been one of the biggest donors to this programme which has been among other things, distributing insecticide treated bed nets. According to Reports from the Zambian Ministry of Health in 2011, statistics showed that deaths from malaria had decreased by over 50%. 

Before embarking on a trip to Zambia Bill Gates was quoted as saying; “I’ll be looking at malaria intervention in Zambia, because that’s where we supported the first major efforts to distribute bed nets and get people to use them. After we began this work, the U.S. started the President’s Malaria Initiative, which essentially expanded what we were doing in Zambia and replicated the program in other countries.”

Africa's future does not depend on aid. It depends on its people and its governments. Yet aid can make a difference. Aid has made a difference. I do not think this is the kind of aid Dr Moyo classes as ‘dead aid’.
However, structural aid which Dambisa brands dead aid, has either not been administered the right way or by the right people. It is common for Donors to have more influence over who forms government in many African countries than the citizens of those countries. It is also common for donors to structure how that aid will be administered instead of letting the locals find their own solutions to their problems. Donors will even design governance policy and governance structures for aid recipient countries. These policy papers authored in Washington or Brussels rarely have the input of the locals who may be better placed to understand problems at hand.

It is thus not surprising that well-respected academic studies cited in Dead Aid show that official foreign aid to such governments fails to raise economic growth. The studies suggest also that such aid fuels corruption, makes democracy less likely, reduces local savings, causes inflation, and makes African exports uncompetitive. (Rajan Raghuram and Arvind Subramanian, 2008, Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show? Review of Economics and Statistics, November 2008, Vol. 90, No. 4: 643–665)
Structural adjustment programs which made aid conditional on governments signing up for damaging experiments in 'big-bang' market liberalization is one such example. Donors pushed the aid recipient countries to embark on hasty but wholesale economic reform that ended up eating at the core of the economies. Zambia was one of the worst affected countries, with the agricultural sector left devastated by a botched liberalization of food marketing. Agricultural cooperatives became run down and food security was left in the hands of foreign owned multi-national companies whose main and only motive was profit. The result was that Zambia became a dumping ground for imports of all sorts of food products imported since her own production capacity was damaged. How was the economy of Zambia expected to grow when production had been cut down and the country depended on imports?

How were we coerced to take radical wholesale liberalization? Detroit is a protected car industry and economy, Africa is forced to open up it’s infant markets and economy. Such ‘extremist ideas’ were intellectually and realistically flawed. Such conditions attached to aid were busy strangling the very economies where aid was being poured into.

However, what would have happened without aid is obviously very hard to determine. Wouldn't it be much better for the developed nations to give aid by bringing about fairer trade? A kind of Trade that ‘creates trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect. That seeks greater equity in international trade, contributing to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers in the poor countries.’

As far back as 1965, Africans like Kwame Nkrumah were questioning aid and its effectiveness in Africa. Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism; Kwame Nkrumah pronounces, “Still another neo-colonialist trap on the economic front has come to be known as ‘multilateral aid’ through international organisations: the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-national Bank for Reconstruction and Development (known as the World Bank), the International Finance Corporation and the International Development Association are examples, all, significantly, having U.S. capital as their major backing. These agencies have the habit of forcing would-be borrowers to submit to various offensive conditions, such as supplying information about their economies, submitting their policy and plans to review by the World Bank and accepting agency supervision of their use of loans. As for the alleged development, between 1960 and mid-1963 the International Development Association promised a total of $500 million to applicants, out of which only $70 million were actually received.

It seems what we have is a situation where ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’. As long as Africa and the rest of the developing world continue on this path of ‘BIG BROTHER’ type of relations and trade with the developed world, we will never get to the ‘promised land’. What is required is mutually beneficial relations that promote fair trade and in some instances growth incentives for developing nations.

Dambisa Moyo has raised pertinent questions that to date, still do not have answers. The world is not moving to remedy the flaws that lie in aid. Aid per se is not the problem we face as Africa; it is a solution that if properly administered would be able to change our continent towards a path of economic growth and poverty alleviation. We would be able to see aid being effective.

Donors would be better served if they adopt at least the first two principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

1.      Emphasize the need to allow recipient countries to define their own development priorities and programs while donors assist in helping recipient countries achieve those priorities. This is a clear departure from the traditional top-down aid approach we have experienced.

2.      Donors also need to align their aid principles with recipients so to ensure that aid does not result in market distortions. This would be to ensure that aid money meant for education does not go into creating separate structures of education but integrating into the existing structures.

Aid effectiveness is the impact that aid has in reducing poverty and inequality, increasing growth, building capacity, and accelerating achievement of the Millennium Development Goals set by the international community. Aid recipient nations also have a role to play in improving aid effectiveness by passing and implementing important anti-corruption reforms. Fears about corruption and other forms of government abuse remain critical sources of concern for donor countries and their respective agencies. Donor worries over government corruption in African countries have led to the proliferation of nongovernmental organizations.

These NGOs have also not helped in being accountable on aid funds.  Former Minister of Community and Social welfare in Zambia, Marina Nsingo, once threatened to deregister the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which have "mushroomed", many purporting to work for poverty alleviation and with AIDS-related issues.

"People have gotten into the habit of hatching NGOs everywhere, saying they are doing poverty alleviation, HIV/AIDS. But what have they done? Or what are they doing? Because the problems do not seem to be going away," said Nsingo.

Former Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa was quoted by the Pan African News Agency as saying: "Donors are more willing to deal with the civil society, but the money is being spent elsewhere. If a government has misused resources, it will be subjected to the process of accountability, but individual organisations cannot be audited by the auditor-general."

Not all aid is dead. But we need to reform our aid administration to ensure effective results. I would like to conclude by querying how the attacks on Dambisa Moyo by Bill Gates did not make any frontpage headlines in Zambia. Are we a country that is quick to pick on a feud between Mampi and Kay figo? This could explain the popularity of Dambisa Michelle Lunda over Dr Dambisa Moyo! Or as a country we love the never ending hostility between Hakainde Hichilema and Michael Sata?  Is this what the Zambian populace is eager to listen to or read about in the papers! The press has a lot of influence on public opinion and culture; hence they could do more in highlighting issues of aid in order to make a contribution to the effectiveness on aid. There are a lot of issues the media can highlight to bring about positive debate in the country. Topics that are more progressive than the constant bickering of politicians.

Below is an extract of Dambisa moyo statement on Bill Gates’ attacks on her and the discussions I had with friends concerning the matter.

Thursday, May 30th, 2013

Dr. Dambisa Moyo responds to Bill Gates’ personal attacks

On May 28^th, 2013 during a Q&A session at the University of New South Wales, Bill Gates, co-Founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, made some shocking and inappropriate ad-hominem attacks against me and my book Dead Aid.

In this video excerpt, Mr. Gates answers a question about Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There is A Better Way for Africa by claiming that I “didn’t know much about aid and what it was doing” and that my work is “promoting evil”.

I find it disappointing that Mr. Gates would not only conflate my arguments about structural aid with those about emergency or NGO aid, but also that he would then use this gross misrepresentation of my work to publicly attack my knowledge, background, and value system.

I would like to take this opportunity to address both of Mr. Gates’ claims here:

1.      I wrote Dead Aid to contribute to a useful debate on why, over many decades, multi billions of dollars of aid has consistently failed to deliver sustainable economic growth and meaningfully reduce poverty. I also sought to explicitly explain how decades of government to government aid actually undermined economic growth and contributed to worsening living conditions across Africa. More than this, I clearly detailed better ways for African leaders, and governments across the world, to finance economic development. I have been under the impression that Mr. Gates and I want the same thing – for the livelihood of Africans to be meaningfully improved in a sustainable way. Thus, I have always thought there is significant scope for a mature debate about the efficacy and limitations of aid. To say that my book “promotes evil” or to allude to my corrupt value system is both inappropriate and disrespectful.

2.      Mr. Gates’ claim that I “didn’t know much about aid and what it was doing” is also unfortunate. I have dedicated many years to economic study up to the PhD 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. To this, I add my experience working as a consultant at the World Bank, and being born and raised in Zambia, one of the poorest aid-recipients in the world. This first-hand knowledge and experience has highlighted for me the legacy of failures of aid, and provided me with a unique understanding of not only the failures of the aid system but also of the tools for what could bring African economic success.

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, and others around the world who suffer the consequences of the aid system every day.

In conclusion, I am disappointed that Mr. Gates would choose the route of personal attacks rather than a logical counter argument about the role of aid in modern Africa. Such attacks add no value in the important discussions on the challenges the world faces to deliver economic growth, eradicate poverty, combat disease, and reduce income inequality, to name a few.

As I have always maintained, I respect the views of others and am open to having logical and meaningful debates with the ultimate goal of finding sustainable solutions to Africa’s economic problems.

Thank you,

Dr. Dambisa Moyo

Bill Gates’ attack on Dambisa Moyo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLE327717CA0322879&v=5utDdxveaJc&feature=player_embedded

Bill Gates' shocking ad-hominem attacks on Dr. Dambisa Moyo and Dead Aid

www.youtube.com

Read Dr. Dambisa Moyo's response: http://www.dambisamoyo.com/?post=dr-dambisa-moyo-responds-to-bill-gates-personal-attacks On May 28th, 2013 during a Q&A ses...

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Like ·  · Unfollow Post · Share · May 30 at 3:05pm near Lusaka

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Libanga Ochola Hey Patrice Nambayo Aongola as much as most people would want to condemn Gate's comments the truth is we should be grateful to this man's efforts through the foundation (Melinda n gates) as if it were not there dnt know how africa would be coping regarding ART he's a true philanthropist now back at 1 but I had always believed he was the richest even when he spent a few years at 3 I actually believe his charity works get into his way Trust me its the reason why I support Microsoft products even if they aint world class but at the back of my mind i kno this man is the reason bhind most of my sisters/bros hopes for a beta tomorrow His point might have been to inform Dr Moyo that not all aid has strings attached and un4tunately emotion cudv taken precedence but I urge you to look at this man's efforts in the well being of vulnerable societies like sub Saharan africa nd you may think he might have an underlining point He's one of those unsung heroes

June 1 at 11:24am · Like

• Akatama Muteto Libanga Ocholabanga,he does have a point but he didnt read her book,because if he had read her book he would have understood what she was trying to say. and it is true,aid is good but not all aid.

June 1 at 11:31am · Like

• Libanga Ochola One of those Off th cuff comments nd i feel moyo shidv just ignored him

June 1 at 11:35am · Like

• Akatama Muteto true!

June 1 at 11:36am · Like

• Akatama Muteto but then again she had to defend herself to protect her reputation,because when Bill Gates talks the world listens

June 1 at 11:36am · Like

• Libanga Ochola Lol! Theyv stopped listening for a while as everybody thinks Microsoft nd him are gone till Nov nyway most tymz stuf dies naturally when u don't counter

June 1 at 11:39am · Like

• Patrice Nambayo Aongola She had to definitely talk because before her book "dead aid", she was just another economist who passed through Harvard and nothing more to it. But the issues she raised in dead aid touched a lot of sensitive areas that in some instances had been noted by many people before but chose to keep quite because at the end of the day Africa needs the aid. Dead aid gave her the international acclaim and the moment a figure like Mr.Gates attacked her "philosophy" or is it school of thought, she had to respond in order to stay in "business" or within the radar of accomplished economists. Her mistake though was to go personal. She should have kept it at a point of defending her philosophy.

June 1 at 11:45am · Like

• Libanga Ochola Thats my feeling 2 sh took it personal

June 1 at 11:47am · Like

• Akatama Muteto but i am surprised Dead Aid is still making headlines.

June 1 at 11:49am · Like

• Libanga Ochola Equally I think its getting unwarranted attention

June 1 at 11:49am · Like

• Akatama Muteto i skim she is trying to make a big deal out of it so that her book starts selling again. but i have enough respect for her not just because she is zedian but because she was brave enough to speak ,question and answer what ever one asks themselves deep in side concerning aid

June 1 at 11:52am · Like

• Libanga Ochola True but hey hopefully it wont boil down 2 race:)

June 1 at 11:53am · Like

• Patrice Nambayo Aongola DEAD AID is Dambisa Moyo. It gave her the spring board and everything else she does like writing quarterly columns for all these renowned magazines is all around her dead aid. I haven't read the other two books but I noticed her newest one "Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for the World", also received critical acclaim. One of my mates Keith spoke highly of the book in one of his posts. Dead aid to Dambisa is like what Terminator is for Anold Swarzszenegar.

June 1 at 11:56am · Like

• Libanga Ochola Well I must confess haven't bothered to even scheme through it as I felt the yarn is a chestnut but big ups 2 her 4 standing up as most of this knowledge is hardly ever officially published Winner takes all might as well be under dead aids genre we all kinda know what China's up2 nd how the west are jealous of this new found 'partner' for africa all in all she's right politically correct to put it out there lest sum1 sitting in some air conditioned office in a western world do just that

June 1 at 12:02pm · Like

• Akatama Muteto if you can make money from telling people what is happening thats great,it is easier than using your imagination and writing some fiction book. the more controversy your book brings the better,more money for you. but at the end of the day,politicians wont read t and the few whomight will do nothing about it. but atleast you get paid

June 1 at 12:08pm · Like

• Libanga Ochola On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 representing < 5% readership nd 10% representing 95% readership of her books in zed how would u rate this book interms of its intended 'target population'?

June 1 at 12:11pm · Like

• Akatama Muteto 1

June 1 at 12:14pm · Like

• Libanga Ochola lol! come on

June 1 at 12:14pm · Like

• Akatama Muteto you see economists have run out of ideas and her book will just add on to books for uni students to read and do research on

June 1 at 12:15pm · Like

• Libanga Ochola Yah!! Like i watched a movie profiling a west african student in France nd one of the comments of a guy he worked with as a parttime security guard was " Africans! U are always good at memorising stuff but....."

June 1 at 12:18pm · Like

• Akatama Muteto we are very good at memorising...

June 1 at 12:20pm · Like

• Patrice Nambayo Aongola lol

June 1 at 12:20pm · Like

• Patrice Nambayo Aongola Akatama & Libanga, I got this response below from some guy, what is your take?

June 1 at 12:41pm · Like

• Patrice Nambayo Aongola "I see the aid conspiracy in different ways, not less than a machine to make more money for those same so called billionaires like Gates. Poverty in terms of diseases is being used as a raw material to make money for wealth pharmaceuticals like GAVI and other multinationals who hide behind the humanitarian cause.Never seen any one impoverished man fattening his family on handouts from good Samaritans. In Zambia no one would want to give such a man the means to become self-reliant so that they continue using his misery for their own ego. If it is a man who comes around with a poking stick to pick up papers at a lawn of a rich man, no one would want to buy the man a lawn mower and bristle brooms so that he starts charging for the service. Instead they want this man to beg and use him for less the price worth his importance to sanitary health. In short all those who want handouts to continue, enjoy seeing the enslaved side of a human being."

June 1 at 12:42pm · Like

• Akatama Muteto i agree with him. i have no problem with giving my workers money to buy mealie meal when they run out or to go to the hospital,but i will not give them money to start a business. i can give them money to buy a tv or a radio but not to start a business

June 1 at 12:46pm · Like

• Libanga Ochola I understand Patrice Nambayo Aongola I feel emotions should always be dealt with in everything we decide as much as I also hate it when I see someone's ego being satisfied by 'giving back' to humanity fact is its human nature even at our own level we get to see 'well wishers' from time to time but question is how we benefit from that ego mean if our benefits outstrip that persons ego why worry about it? Its one of those sayings " In life we hardly get what we want but merely what we negotiate for"

June 1 at 12:48pm · Like

• Patrice Nambayo Aongola It’s easy to understand where Mr. Gates is coming from, he is emotionally attached to his aid, he wants to change the world with it, and feels insulted when people like Dr. Moyo discredit and vilify it, (which she does in her book). Even more in one of her chapters she argues that maybe Africa needs benevolent dictators, it could be to this that Mr. Gates (a benevolent dictator himself in his industry but one who hates political dictators) is so incensed with Dambisa enough to call her as "promoting evil". However Mr. Gates could rest easy as Dr. Moyo in her own book, does later on debunk her own philosophy of a benevolent dictator by highlighting their rarity on the continent.In the end these are two people who both want to change the world one is a Rich genius and wants to do it with his money the other is a genius and wants to do with her philosophy. In the end they both mean well.

June 1 at 1:11pm · Like · 1

• Libanga Ochola Guess so Patrice but my feeling is usually to gauge these issues in a cost/benefit i.e. for the common good but I reckon its a clash of ethical positions

June 1 at 1:31pm · Unlike · 1

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