"As former development minister Rory Stewart said in a lecture at Yale, Britain gave £4.5billion over half a century to this southern African country corroded by corruption and bad governance, yet it ended up “if anything, poorer than it was when we started”.

Foreign Aid allows corrupt governments to cinch the economic noose tight, because the standard of living of corrupt governments are funded via pilfering the foreign aid.  

Absent foreign aid, corrupt governments would need to sustain their standard of living via taxation of the local economy, and would thus loosen the economic noose to allow the economy to grow, and thereby be capable of greater tax harvest.  meh...no one said human farming was easy.  

While foreign aid 'feels nice' for westerners, it has a counterproductive effect of keeping an economically oppressed people oppressed.  

What they need is economic liberty and sound property rights that allows for the accumulation and efficient allocation of capital.