I read the interview, I haven't read Moyo's book. In the interview the distinction is made between systematic aid, usually provided by western govts to African govts, and emergency aid. Her beef doesn't seem to be with emergency aid but with systematic aid that distorts local economies and political relationships. Noone is actually against, for example, provision of basic emergency medical care to save lives in the short term, right? I doubt that individual contributions make up much of the systematic aid.
I her book is title and promoted the way it is for shock value - the same way she's not against emergency aid, few people are against the idea of real economic development and independence for African nations. Seems like a 'non-wood' argument: 'aid isn't helping Africa develop, what we need is non-aid!'.
Off topic, but Mayo also says: "NASA spends billions on a MARS project, but they don’t really think we’re going there." Which is wrong, unless you think remote controlled exploration isn't really 'being there'.
There has been a similar conversation going on for some time in Australia about welfare dependence in Aboriginal communities. It's a common view amongst a new generation of Aboriginal leaders that welfare dependence is at the heart of the social problems faced by remote communities, and they call for more restrictions on welfare and a greater emphasis on personal responsibility and entrepreneurship.
Dambisa Moyo, an African economist, has joined her voice to the other African economists [e.g. James Shikwati] calling for a full halt to Western aid. Her book is called Dead Aid and it asserts a direct cause-and-effect relationship between $1 trillion of aid and the rise in African poverty rates from 11% to 66%.
Though it's an easy enough signal to fake, I find it noteworthy that Moyo - in this interview at least - repeatedly pleads for some attention to "logic and evidence":
"I think the whole aid model is couched in pity. I don’t want to cast aspersions as to where that pity comes from. But I do think it’s based on pity because based on logic and evidence, it is very clear that aid does not work. And yet if you speak to some of the biggest supporters of aid, whether they are academics or policy makers or celebrities, their whole rationale for giving more aid to Africa is not couched in logic or evidence; it’s based largely on emotion and pity."
I was just trying to think of when was the last time I heard a Western politician - or even a mainstream Western economist in any public venue - draw an outright battle line between logic and pity. Oh, there are plenty of demagogues who claim the evidence is on their side, but they won't be so outright condemning of emotion - it's not a winning tactic. Even I avoid drawing a battle line so stark.
Moyo says she's gotten a better reception in Africa than in the West. Maybe you need to see your whole continent wrecked by emotion and pity before "logic and evidence" start to sound appealing.