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Bill Gates has set ambitious goals for Africa. Benny Dembitzer asks whether another top-down aid programme can succeed without understanding how poverty is experienced on the ground.

Big international NGOs were created to challenge injustice. Have scale, bureaucracy and dependence on institutional funding pulled them away from the people they claim to serve?

Donors are encouraged to give, but rarely shown the full journey of their money. This article follows the systems, costs and decisions between a donation and its intended recipient.

Benny Dembitzer witnessed the Ethiopian famine response firsthand. Four decades later, he reflects on what Band Aid changed, what it missed and why hunger persists.

Corruption in poorer countries is frequently condemned without examining who enables it. Benny distinguishes need from greed and asks where power and responsibility truly sit.

Emergency relief can save lives, but it cannot replace long-term development. Communities need the power, resources and stability to build beyond repeated crisis response.

The language of saving Africa places outsiders at the centre. What changes when communities define the problem, lead the response and decide what progress means?

Trillions have been spent in the name of development, yet poverty and hunger persist. The question is not whether the world has given enough, but how the system uses what it gives.

A major report may acknowledge global poverty while relying on familiar assumptions. Benny asks whether respected institutions are diagnosing the system or simply repeating it.

Vast sums have been committed to ending poverty, but outcomes remain painfully limited. Following the money reveals who controls it, where it is absorbed and who is overlooked.