The first thing is to just write - get something down on paper. You have to be disciplined and make the time to write.

I really wanted to see good ideas applied to policy problems and I tried to develop solutions.

A lot of this book, Expensive Poverty, is really about the experiences of the last 15 years working at the Brenthurst Foundation. The Brenthurst Foundation's model really started off by trying to understand what global best practice was, in terms of development.

There have been some improvements, but a lot of it is not down to aid. In fact, aid, in many instances, has made things worse. It's been spent in countries that have wasted it precisely because they needed the aid in the first case, and those who gave it knew that they would waste it. So it has not made things better. It has, in fact, at best, left things as they were.

Nothing is for free so a lot of aid offered to Africa comes with conditions. These conditions often leave the receiving countries worse off, rather than developing them. There are other ways to offer aid besides soft loans which are disadvantageous.

Asia is big on popular welfare, which has helped their commitment to rebuilding for the people. They've been able to make better use of the aid provided to them because they own their domestic agenda. They've learnt from the past without getting stuck in it and allowing it to affect their future negatively.

Africa is massive so there is no one size fits all solution for the continent. Still, there are many parallels between South Africa and the rest of Africa. The main one is that we need to come up with ways of doing business that create opportunities for all.

Success stories in Africa are not always or easily replicable. Africa can learn a lot from the Meiji Restoration in Japanese history. It equalised opportunities for education in a way that Africa can emulate.

I think there are huge opportunities as population numbers increase, particularly in the FMCG. As population numbers double and as, at least, there's more spending in infrastructure and more focus on making better use of infrastructure, I think that we're going to see those improvements take root. I don't think every market is going to necessarily be easy. I think some markets are going to become more difficult as they become more congested and perhaps more fractured with lots of business frictions.

The fact that Africa has a young, fast-digitalising population is reason for excitement. While our problems persist, they create opportunities for solutions and business.