Dambisa Moyo has a point. The way in which she makes her point, however, rankles. The Zambian-born economist and author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa has stirred up controversy by attacking the chic celebritification of Africa.

Moyo can only be properly described as the classic Type A personality. With degrees from Harvard and Oxford and time served at Goldman Sachs, Moyo is an almost unnaturally driven advocate of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps approach. Unfortunately -- or, perhaps, fortunately -- Moyo holds everyone to the same standards in which she runs her life. Many Sub-Saharan governments lean, almost grotesquely, on the crutch of short-term foreign aid to provide for the people, overlooking, in the process, long-term bets like investing in education of the young and infrastructural spending. Of course, that hard rhetoric dovetails perfectly into the Steve Forbes crowd (Africanophile Forbes smarmily blurbed her book). The result: Forbes magazine -- which could care less about African advancement -- and Moyo are on the same side of the aisle, speaking in the same voice.

Dambisa Moyo's argument ought to be heard. For too long -- decades, in fact -- the other side has dominated, and the results have been thin considering the vast amounts of moneies from Europe and America. "With aid-based models," she said on Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" this week, "you will never get a situation where governments provide innovative solutions to problems." Clearly the ultra-capitalistic tough love approach has worked for the particular temperament of Moyo, but -- and this is the $64,000 question -- Would it work for Sub-Saharan Africa? Can we take that risk? Can we not?