Let’s have a look at the some of the books which help with that thinking. Your first choice is the yet-to-be-published book Awakening Giant Africa by Charles Nhova.

This book, by a Zimbabwean, deals with four paradoxes about Africa: Poverty in the midst of abundant natural wealth; stagnant standard of living, despite billions of dollars of “development” finance or foreign aid pumped into Africa over the past 50 years; the gap between borrowed Western development patterns and the real aspirations and needs of Africa’s majority poor; and why neither Western democracy nor Eastern socialism works well in Africa. Rewriting national constitutions to try to improve democratic governance in some countries has also not made much difference.

What is the problem with that way of thinking?

This path has been pursued from a paradigm that ignores the differences in culture, social relations, relations of production and property relations between Africa and northern countries. Much less energy has been devoted to identifying, within that African context, the real aspirations and needs of Africa’s majority poor themselves, and tailoring economic development policy, strategies and action plans to meet those needs. It continues to baffle political scholars the world over why – even with successive changes of regime or political leadership in several African countries – Western democracy just does not seem to work for Africa.

And what do you see as the real aspirations and needs of Africa’s poor?

The basic aspiration of Africa’s poor is to be free. The most important thing for them is security and peace, and they also want to be able to improve their standard of living. They want to lift themselves out of poverty, and they want to make the effort themselves. For far too long in the past there have been all sorts of charlatans, governments and leaders who have promised to do things for them and have betrayed them. A Lesotho chief expressed it best: “Here in Lesotho, we have two problems: Rats and the government."

Your next choice is Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid, which again reflects the idea that the West is getting it wrong.

Yes. Dambisa Moyo, who was a student of mine at American University in Washington DC, represents a growing chorus of Africans who regard the Western foreign aid-driven development model – or the Washington consensus – to be an abysmal failure. More than $800bn in Western aid has been pumped into Africa since 1960, with little to show for it except a multitude of black elephants, show-airports amid institutional decay, and crumpled infrastructure. Moyo argues that foreign aid actually made Africans poorer by creating a dependency on aid, depreciating their pride and dignity, and preventing them from crafting their own development models. All aid to Africa should be halted in five years, she urges.

Do you agree with her?

I agree with her general theme that Western aid to Africa has worsened Africa’s condition, but not with her contention that it should be halted, and much less with her urging that Africa should look to China as a role model. Firstly, foreign aid has become a huge industry replete with its own lobbyists. I doubt if foreign aid can be stopped. Instead, we should try to improve its effectiveness. Secondly, Africa should look neither West nor East but inwards. China’s state capitalism model has been tried in Africa with disastrous consequences. More pertinently, the enthusiasm for China’s extensive forays into Africa in search of resources to feed its hungry industrial machine has now soured. I call China’s frenetic engagement with Africa “chopsticks mercantilism”. With chopsticks dexterity, it can pick platinum in Zimbabwe, bauxite in Guinea, oil in Sudan, timber in Gabon and so on. China is also engaged in a vast array of infrastructural projects across the continent.