What hasn't my guest ambi some oil done? Born in Zambia, at a time when blacks weren't even given birth certificates, she's earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry, an MBA, a second master's degree, this one from Harvard, and an economics PhD from Oxford.

She worked at the World Bank in Goldman Sachs, she's written four best-selling books, was named one of Time Magazine's 100 People Who Shape Our World.

She runs Marathons and she sits on the board of some of the largest corporations in the world.

Welcome to People I Mostly Admire, with Steve Levitt.

If you know me at all, you know I would never invite someone on this show just because she has a sparkling resume.

What matters to me is that Dambi has big radical ideas.

Most prominent among these ideas is her claim that the more than 500 billion dollars in foreign aid that has been directed towards African countries over the last 50 years, not only hasn't helped Africa, and it's actually hurt Africa.

Bill Gates vehemently disagreed when her book Dead Aid came out, laying out her arguments on the topic, Gates described the book as promoting evil.

Who's right? I have no idea, but I'm excited to hear what she has to say.

We are both economists, but very different kinds of economists. I study little things and you study big things, so I'm expecting you to teach me a whole lot today. Is that a deal?

I will do my best.

So let's start with Africa. You've been an outspoken critic of foreign aid to Africa, but before we dive into the specifics of your argument, I was hoping you could fill me in on some facts and understanding about how Africa has been doing economically.

What's been going on in the last 10 years, Africa hasn't really been decoupled from the broader constructs of the world.

Growth has slowed. Capital flows have been challenged because of capital restrictions and controls for repatriating money.

The advent of China across Africa, but obviously globally, China is today the largest foreign lender trading partner, as well as the largest investor in many countries.

And of course Africa has been a beneficiary of that with awards and all of what that entails where we are today.

The situation is precarious to say the least, although we have seen a number of COVID cases, Africa has knock on wood, seen nowhere near the sort of devastation that one might have expected and indeed we're not seeing in India.

There's a general impression or at least my impression that the economic performance overall growth rates in Africa, the incomes are extremely low.

And that maybe surprisingly low given people's expectations over time, is that an accurate statement? I know Africa is a big continent with a lot of diversity.

Yeah, so listen, as economists, we love numbers. So let's put some numbers on this.

In order to double per capita incomes in one generation, a generation being about 25 years, you need to be growing at 3% per year.

And for countries that are a lower economic base, we've seen that we need them to grow at even faster pace, often around 7% a year.

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