Dambisa Moyo is an international economist who analyzes the macroeconomy and global affairs.

Why you should listen

Dambisa Moyo's work examines the interplay between rapidly developing countries, international business, and the global economy -- while highlighting opportunities for investment. She has travelled to more than 60 countries over the past decade, studying the political, economic and financial workings of emerging economies, in particular the BRICs and the frontier economies in Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East. Her latest book, Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What It Means for the World, looks at how commodities markets influence much more than the global economy -- and examines the possible consequences of China's unprecedented rush for commodities such as oil, minerals, water, and food, including the looming specter of commodity-driven conflict.

She is the author of the brilliantly argued 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. Previously, she was an economist at Goldman Sachs, where she worked for nearly a decade, and was a consultant to the World Bank in Washington.

What others say

“Dambisa Moyo makes a compelling case for a new approach in Africa. Her message is that 'Africa's time is now': It is time for Africans to assume full control over their economic and political destiny. Africans should grasp the many means and opportunities available to them for improving the quality of life.” — Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General

Dambisa Moyo’s TED talks

More news and ideas from Dambisa Moyo

Global Issues

Further reading on China’s investment in Africa … and what it means

November 11, 2013

In today’s talk, Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo describes how China’s growing presence in Africa is challenging a centuries-old tenet of Western political thought.   For more than 200 years, Moyo argues, liberal democracy has ruled the roost. Particularly in the West, it’s long been considered the political system most likely to deliver economic success and […]

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Live from TEDGlobal

A widening schism: Dambisa Moyo at TEDGlobal 2013

June 13, 2013

“Give me liberty or give me death,” says global economist Dambisa Moyo, quoting Patrick Henry from 1775. In Western ideology, freedom is the most cherished value of all, and its government and economic systems have freedom deeply embedded in them. Over the past century, these systems have delivered prosperity and innovation: US incomes have increased […]

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