Traditional proverb: Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.

In Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There is a Better Way For Africa, former Goldman Sachs and World Bank employee Dr. Dambisa Moyo adeptly posits that no matter how many billions of dollars Western associations and governments funnel into Africa, it will not reduce or solve the problem of poverty in Africa. Economic development in Asia and Latin America has been more successful than anything seen in Africa.

Moyo’s idea is not exactly original. Criticizing Western (read: white) benevolence to Africans has become sport among the black intelligentsia. What the author succeeds at in Dead Aid, however, is uniting these arguments together for the first time in an accessible work. In this age of financial crisis and the wake of the G-20 summit, Dead Aid is a worthwhile contribution to the debate on economic relief. The book also provides valuable information about the status of existing aid programs.

Moyo’s timely criticism centers on direct government to government aid or that which is distributed by institutions such as the World Bank. In a manner that inspires us to rethink our notions about charity, she argues that the system has done nothing to boost African economies. The failure, in Moyo’s analysis, has little to do with the more typical criticism that aid has been ineffective in combating persistent problems such as lack of infrastructure, authoritarian rule, local corruption, oversized bureaucracies and burdensome debt.

For Moyo, the problem is the aid itself. When Western governments, aid organizations or rock stars flood African economies with donations of mosquito nets or food, she argues, local entrepreneurs are choked off from competition. The global focus on the poorest Africans does not help grow small business or grow the middle class. Unconditional aid creates welfare nation-states, fostering a culture of dependency. Whatever their motivations, non-Africans over the long haul have added to, not alleviated, indigence in Africa.