Listen to this: Dambisa Moyo is on point.

So, if you don't listen to On Point with Tom Ashbrook, you're missing out. 

Yesterday he interviewed Dambisa Moyo, about her new book, Dead Aid. Her thesis - that aid to Africa has hurt the continent - is infuriating for people who work in aid organizations and see hardship and want to ease it. 

At the same time, I think, it confirms the suspicions that we don't want to address.

Granted, she is not talking about charity. Nor is she talking about humanitarian aid. She is talking only about government-to-government aid, which she says has fueled conflict and corruption for 60 years, instead of letting African economies grow strong. She's a proponent of the free-market system. Without this aid, she says, markets would have had the primacy they require to function properly, and Africa would be significantly more well-off. 

What she says should resonate, even with those of us in charities and in the humanitarian sector. All this aid has been given, she said, but it hasn't done anything, except to create jobs for white people.

In the "we help people" mode of analysis, Moyo is saying not only that we do not help people, but that we hurt people to help ourselves. 

I've heard a lot of people dismiss her out of hand. (Her counterpoint on this radio program is really good.)

But its lazy and dishonest of us not to stop and evaluate ourselves more closely.  

Are we doing the right things?