Any recovery strategy for the continent described as “ambitious and bold” - ie, expensive and experimental - should be treated with caution. And if the architects of such a plan appear to share the view of Tony Blair and his Africa Commission that more money is the answer to the continent’s crisis - one would be well-advised to give them, and their plan, a very wide berth indeed.

It is some 25 years since the World Bank rang the alarm bells about the state of Africa. Billions of aid dollars later, and after numerous initiatives based on everything from cheap fertiliser to debt relief, Africa’s crisis continues. The solution is elusive.

Yet with the confidence that comes of having piles of money, and with not a little condescension, Scottish multi-millionaire Sir Tom Hunter announced last week that he and former US President Bill Clinton had teamed up to “construct a new model of poverty intervention”.

“This is about enabling developing communities,” said Sir Tom,” empowering them to define and deliver the solutions that best fit their needs. We aim to support communities and large regions in gaining a foothold on the first rung of the development ladder … initially we will identify two countries (one in Africa) where a major regional pilot programme will take place incorporating, as necessary, interventions in education, health, infrastructure, agriculture and entrepreneurial support in an integrated, holistic approach defined and delivered by the local community.”

The rhetoric may be risible, but the funds are substantial. Sir Tom will kick it off with $100m of “seed money”. This will be spent, says Mr Ewan Hunter, chief executive of Sir Tom’s Hunter Foundation, on “pilot schemes aimed at self-sufficiency”.

“The ten-year programme will be similar to a venture capital investment: we will make them sustainable and then move on. We will take a look at a matrix of available talent, if that doesn’t sound too blunt. We want it to be driven from the bottom up.”

Mr Hunter does not have to look far to discover why his “matrix of available talent” - what the rest of us call “skills” - is so depleted. Most of Africa’s best and its brightest have emigrated and live here, in Europe. There are more doctors who trained in Malawi, for example, working in Birmingham than there are in the whole of Malawi itself.

And this brings us to the heart of Africa’s crisis.

The World Bank estimates that some 100,000 foreigners are recruited annually to work in Africa, while 60,000 of the continent’s most talented people leave each year for Europe or North America.

Add to this brain drain the continent’s capital flight - far exceeding Africa's external debt. While corruption is not unique to Africa, one feature of its endemic sleaze is: the ill-gotten gains are seldom, if ever, invested on the continent. Instead they end up in European banks and in North American property.

If Sir Tom’s venture offered a clue as to how this devastating combination of capital flight and brain drain can be reversed, and how the lack of confidence can be restored, his money would be well spent. Instead he seems to share the Africa Commission’s belief that the region’s crisis can be resolved if more money is thrown at it, in which case his foundation is more likely to become part of the problem than part of the answer.

This is no counsel of despair. There are ways to address the exodus of African talent. For example, charge the successful emigrants the market rate for their visas, and these fees can then be sent back to the country of emigrant’s origin, with the condition that the funds be spent on training replacements.

Maintaining skills requires books. But the product of western publishing houses are out of reach of African readers, for they cost a month’s wage. Yet with modest help from publishers and authors, locally printed editions can be produced for a tenth of the UK price. Lift this de facto tax on ideas, and it is more likely that Africans will come up with their own answers to the continent’s woes.

We are told that Sir Tom is motivated by the example of the Scottish industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, who declared that “a man who dies rich, dies disgraced”. Spend your money on Africa by all means, Sir Tom, but spend it wisely. Use your "seed money" on restocking African universities’ run-down libraries. One hundred million dollars will go a long way - and unlike your well-intentioned plan, can do no harm.

Michael Holman is the former Africa editor for the London Financial Times. His new novel, Last Orders at Harrods: An African Tale, has just been published by Polygon. Buy it here.

Times recommends

• Friday: latest flight and airport news
• Ski guide school in Whistler
• The best festivals in France, 2010