Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyois a Zambisa economist and writer whose books, articles, and public lectures centre on the creation of wealth and the perpetuation of poverty in a global economy. Much of her writing focuses on the dynamic interrelationships between impoverished states of her native Africa, emerging economies such as China, and established wealthy societies such as the United States.

Moyo passed a portion of her childhood in the United States, where her father pursued postgraduate education, and then returned to Zambia, where her mother eventually became chairwoman of a state-owned bank and her father pursued a career in academia and public administration. She studied chemistry at the University of Zambia in Lusaka but left the country in 1991, during a period of political unrest, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry (1991) and a master’s degree in business administration (1993) from American University in Washington, D.C. She then worked for two years at the World Bank. In 1997 she received a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and in 2002 she received a doctorate in economics from St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Her doctoral dissertation was on savings rates in developing countries.

In 2001 Moyo joined the global investment firm Goldman Sachs, where she advised developing countries on the issuing of bonds on the international market. While working full-time, she wrote Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (2009). The book, whose main title is an ironic reference to the Live Aid benefit concerts of 1985, argues that the large amounts of money donated by Western states and organizations such as the World Bank have effectively perpetuated poverty in Africa. Such foreign aid, instead of being invested in economically viable job-creating activities, has lined the pockets of corrupt administrators and created a habit of dependency in the African client states.

In How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly—And the Stark Choices Ahead (2011), Moyo declared that Western countries such as the United States have imperiled their hard-earned prosperity by a half century of high consumption, low savings, and lack of investment in infrastructure (including education). Meanwhile, China’s model of a high savings rate and heavy investment in engineering and science has propelled it on a course of rising prosperity, and this model has become admired around the developing world. In order to win the race for economic dominance, Moyo argued, the United States would have to stop indulging in short-term consumption and invest heavily in its future; as an extreme measure, it might have to consider defaulting on its enormous debt to China and closing its market to the world while it rebuilds its economy.

Moyo continued the theme of global economic competition in Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What It Means for the World (2012). In that book she assumed that the world’s mineral commodities and agricultural resources such as water and arable land are finite and subject to increasing competition. In that “zero-sum” world, she argued, China is following a far-sighted strategy of purchasing rights to resources all over the world—often on generous terms that bring employment and infrastructure to countries that sorely need them. Her later works included Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth—and How to Fix It (2018) and How Boards Work: And How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World (2021).

Moyo’s first book became a best seller, and she embarked on a new career as a writer, speaker, and commentator. She also sat on the boards of numerous companies and organizations, including SABMiller PLC, an international brewing company with roots in South Africa; Lundin Petroleum AB, a Swedish oil exploration and production company; and Barclays Bank PLC, a firm headquartered in London.