BBC Africa Debate asks: Has Africa outgrown development aid?

A special edition of BBC World Service’s global radio programme, BBC Africa Debate, will be coming from the British Museum in London. Presented by the BBC’s Alex Jakana and Zeinab Badawi and recorded in front of an invited audience, it will ask if Africa has outgrown development aid.

Ten years ago the British Museum hosted the launch of the UK-government-led ‘Commission for Africa’. This was the time of a popular global movement to Make Poverty History in Africa, a revival of Live Aid concerts, and promises from the leaders of the world’s most developed nations to increase aid to Africa. The Commission for Africa encouraged partnership between Africa and the developed world, rather than a relationship of dependency. BBC Africa Debate will explore if this is now happening and asks if the continent is now in a position to be an agent of its own progress.

The BBC debate coincides with the UN Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and comes just weeks after Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta urged fellow African leaders to stop receiving foreign aid . The panel will be:

Andrew Mitchell - Secretary of State for International Development, 2010-12;

Oby Ezekwisili - Co-founder of Transparency International, former World Bank Vice President for Africa and former Education Minister of Nigeria;

Tutu Agyare - Managing Director of Nubuku Investments;

Giles Bolton - author of "Aid and other dirty business", previously worked for DFID and now Responsible Sourcing Director at Tesco.

Audiences can join the debate via social media, with conversations on Twitter (#bbcafricadebate) and on Facebook and Google+ (search for BBC Africa).

BBC Africa Debate will be pre-recorded on Monday 13 July and broadcast at 19.00GMT (20.00 British Summer Time) on Tuesday 14 July. It will also be available as a podcast on the BBC World Service website .

This edition of BBC Africa Debate is made with support from the Royal African Society.