By Milimo Moyo
Zambian economist and best-selling author, Dambisa Moyo, has been hailed as a powerful woman by Oprah Winfrey. Moyo is featured in the September 2009 issue of Oprah’s O Magazine as one of the most powerful women of this generation. The magazine recognized Moyo for her hugely successful book, Dead Aid, which courageously condemns string-laded government to government aid. In the book, Moyo argues that such systematic aid has perpetrated Africa’s poverty and prevented the continent from reaching its full potential.
“If you question aid to Africa, as I did, you’re quickly labeled racist or insensitive or extremist,” Dambisa tells O Magazine. “People use inflammatory language; they say your arguments are foolish, stupid or cruel. But if you ask, Would you prefer we live in the status quo?, you get a silence”.
O Magazine also quotes Moyo as saying that real power came from making everyone feel as feel that “they’re on the same page”.
With “Power” as its main theme for the September issue, O Magazine spotlighted 20 women who possess inner power and shared it with the world through their work. In the magazine’s foreword, Oprah defined the criteria used to select the impressive aptly termed O Power List: “What I find powerful is a person with grace, with courage, with confidence to be her own self and to make things happen”, she writes.
Other powerful women featured on the O Power List are tennis champion Venus Williams, renowned political analyst Donna Brazile, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Sheila Bair and former CEO of Xerox Anne Mulcahy, among others.
Dambisa crosses another milestone becoming the first Zambian author to be prominently featured in O Magazine.
*The writer of this article is not related to Dambisa Moyo
