Dambisa Moyo made a stop at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday to talk about her book Dead Aid. The book is creating a lot of buzz. I now understand why. Moyo’s message is simple, sharp and compelling – and it is not weighed down by a lot of nuance or evidence.

Full disclosure: I have not read the book, so my impression of Moyo’s arguments is only based on her presentation at Harvard.

I’m glad that Dead Aid and the strong reaction to it (both positive and negative) help to stir the pot. We should be asking fundamental questions about the effectiveness and sustainability of foreign aid. So I was disappointed that Moyo’s sweeping generalizations missed the opportunity to use evidence of impact (or the gaps in such evidence) as a basis for critiquing important weaknesses in aid models. Instead, she seemed to assert that almost every failing in Africa - from inefficient bureaucracies to inflation and from corruption to Dutch Disease – was either caused by or directly related to foreign aid.

Moyo argues that aid has disenfranchised Africans, and that the celebrities who have embraced Africa routinely convey only negative images of Africans. Moyo is correct that badly-designed aid skews accountability of governments (away from their citizens and toward donors) and that fundraising for Africa more often uses stories of misery and desperation than narratives of hope and strength.

Ironically, the image that Moyo conveys of African leaders and citizens is extremely negative and disempowering. She paints a picture of helpless victims held hostage to a harmful aid model imposed on them by western donors. Moyo applauds President Kagame’s leadership in Rwanda and his efforts to establish parameters for donors. But she does not allow that Africans – from national leaders to community groups – have the agency and ability to articulate their priorities and exert some control over how aid is used.  Rwanda, being both a donor favorite and a perceived success story, is an interesting case study against which to interrogate Moyo’s thesis - but she did not do so.

In her introductory comments, Moyo stated that Dead Aid does not refer to humanitarian assistance or the work of NGOs because that was “charity”. I am not sure why Moyo took NGOs off the hook!  They are major implementers of aid from donor governments.  So why should they be less accountable for achieving positive impact?

One could argue that humanitarian assistance, to the extent that it involves rapid infusions of resources into crisis settings, is ripe for the kind of negative impact that Moyo points to. Also, in settings where disasters or conflicts unfold over years and people live in crisis every day, humanitarian assistance is part and parcel of the longer-term aid model that Moyo critiques.

It is clear that Dambisa Moyo’s message is striking a chord - and that she is tapping into a significant vein of skepticism about the current aid model. I hope that her arguments – whether or not one agrees with them – propel efforts to increase the effectiveness of foreign aid and expand the range of strategies (beyond aid) for ending poverty, advancing dignity and promoting economic growth.