I would say issues around human rights - either you're going to take a hard stance, or you're not. You can't borrow money from China the way the U.S. has done and then turn around and say, 'But you've got a human-rights problem.' You can't be half pregnant.
I had the good fortune to spend hours with my parents around the dinner table having debates on politics and economics.
Too many African countries have already hit rock-bottom - ungoverned, poverty-stricken, and lagging further and further behind the rest of the world each day; there is nowhere further to go down.
I don't think my background in Zambia has really affected my lens because my classical training has been Western-style. But it's fantastically fortuitous to have been born African because I don't feel I have a vested interest to the U.S. or China or wherever.
I'm an economist, not a political scientist.
This is my favourite thing about being raised in Africa: we don't do labels very well; we don't do this, 'Oh, you're a Democrat; oh, you're a Republican.' Because we live in the real world.
I went into the sciences very early on, but to me, economics pervades so much more of our lives and our existence.
The people I admire unreservedly are my parents. They are the real pioneers of Africa in many ways. They were born and raised in rural Africa during the colonial period. They are the ones who came to the U.S. long before I did.
This is a great continent. I went to primary school on this continent, secondary school, university. I've worked on this continent, and I think that it's a great disservice that, for whatever reason, people have usurped an imagery of Africa that is absolutely incorrect.
The western mindset erroneously equates a political system of multi-party democracy with high-quality institutions... the two are not synonymous.
I'm not a politician - it's not my cup of tea.
I am fortunate: my parents told me the world was my oyster, when they could have said I wouldn't make it for a lot of reasons - rural, girl, small African country. So, no regrets.
I'll make a general comment about this whole dependence on 'celebrities.' I object to this situation as it is right now, where they have inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent.
I wish we questioned the aid model as much as we are questioning the capitalism model. Sometimes the most generous thing you can do is just say no.
We've reached a very low-level equilibrium where it's not clear whose interest it is in to develop Africa... It's not in the interest of those in the aid industry to develop Africa because then there'd be no more industry and 500,000 people would lose their jobs. The only people whose interest it is in is Africans, but they have no voice.
