Whenever anyone asks me how to conquer poverty in Africa, an indelible image comes to mind. It is one that has been deeply embedded in my consciousness since I first saw it on the television screen two years ago. It is the image of a tall, dark, and handsome man -- maybe about 35 years old -- in the traditional flowing indigo robe and matching turban worn by Tuareg men in the Sahel region of Africa. He is running toward a helicopter hovering above a stretch of land in the forbidding and oppressive heat of the Sahara desert. He cradles a baby in one arm and pulls an emaciated young boy about 6 years old with the other, as he frantically charges toward the emergency food aid that is being dropped from the helicopters hovering about 20 feet above the ground. His struggle is just one among hundreds of his neighbors in what appears to be a massive free-for-all rush for donated food and medical supplies.

If he was lucky and strong enough, he may have secured food for another day, perhaps another week. But then what?

His strong athletic physique is in stark and revealing contrast to the tears of anguish streaming down his angular cheeks on an otherwise proud and noble face and a regal carriage. It is a look of frustration, defeat, and utter despair -- but not simply because he may not be one of the fortunate few to latch onto one or more of the raining emergency aid packages and feed his starving family that night. His anguish runs far deeper than the mere anxiety of where the next meal will come from. His tears embody the utter defeat, humiliation, and despair that any parent must feel when he realizes that no matter how hard he tries and no matter how much he desires to do so, he will not be able to adequately and independently provide for and protect the children he brought into this world. Eventually, the levee will break.

I'll never know if he and his children reached the pile -- the camera faded away before the story played out, and the reporter moved on to the next topic. If he was lucky and strong enough, he may have secured food for another day, perhaps another week. Then what? What happens after the helicopter leaves?

Jobs: A "Passport to Independence"

More than anything else, what Africa and the African people need to escape the abyss of poverty and the vicissitudes of Mother Nature is jobs. This need is fundamental because it is the passport to personal independence and to the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and prosperity, and all that it entails, including such basic essentials as clean water, food, health, and education. A job provides an opportunity to live a meaningful life and to contribute to society.

Africa needs the kinds of jobs that are created primarily by foreign and local investors and entrepreneurs -- jobs that will provide its people with incomes that allow them to produce, to consume, and to educate and care for their children. Take the Coca-Cola Company -- one of the largest contributors to economic development in Africa. More by enlightened self-interest than by calculated design, the Coca-Cola Company is the largest private-sector employer in Africa. The company has more than 60,000 employees on the continent and estimates that another 10 indirect jobs are created for each direct one, as a result of related manufacturing, supply, sales, marketing, and distribution activities.

One Family's Story

Tino Soriano, National Geographic Image Collection

My own personal experience illustrates this as well. I was born in a very tiny African village, but I was able to study and learn at some of the best academic institutions in the world. This was the by-product of an investment of one private company whose primary mission was not to reduce poverty, but to make money, and lots of it, by extracting the rich iron ore reserves that happened to be in the impoverished hinterland of Liberia where I was born. In the process of doing so, the company, LAMCO, had to first employ thousands of people to build the enabling infrastructure, including roads, telecommunications, hospitals, port facilities, and schools.

My father, Emmanuel, an immigrant to the country with no more than a high school education, became one of LAMCO's first employees following a chance meeting with the company's founder, the Swedish financier Marcus Wallenberg. After about 13 years as a company accountant, Emmanuel saw an opportunity to serve the rapidly growing number of new consumers in the LAMCO sphere. These consumers had demands that needed to be met, and a growing number of new businesses were being created to meet them, including supermarkets, transportation companies, retail shops, hotels, restaurants, and others.

Emmanuel, an entrepreneur at heart, left LAMCO to open a restaurant. He employed about 15 people and the restaurant became the town's most popular, serving the citizens of the mining community and others in the surrounding areas who were also thriving as a result of the economic activity stimulated by the LAMCO investment.

There is ample reason for hope and optimism, including significant advances in the areas of technology, medicine, and science, and the application of important economic reforms by a new generation of leaders on the continent.

Until her retirement, my mother, Julia, was the head nurse for the company hospital, and she helped Emmanuel, who worked night and day. Their dedication and hard work paid off. With the proceeds of the restaurant and Julia's salary from LAMCO, my parents were able to send their four children to college, and like the other entrepreneurs in the community, they re-invested their profits in their community as philanthropists, giving to a lot of worthy causes and supporting the local soccer team, which achieved national status.

Thankfully, my family was spared the humiliation, the frustration, and the personal loss of dignity and sense of failure that no doubt afflicts every parent who must rely on the arrival of the next helicopter or aid vehicle loaded with bags of temporary relief, no matter how compassionately offered.

"Reason for Hope and Optimism"

Unfortunately, for at least some years to come, Africa will continue to rely at least partly on "traditional" approaches to foreign and emergency aid. However, if the continent is to make a serious, lasting, and sustainable dent in the incidence of poverty and its devastating and debilitating consequences, it will have to do so the old-fashioned way, primarily relying on businesses, intrepid entrepreneurs, and good governance by its leaders. There is ample reason for hope and optimism, including significant advances in the areas of technology, medicine, and science, and the application of important economic reforms by a new generation of leaders.

The fact is that all countries started out poor, and all countries emerged from poverty by literally working their way out of it. Take the most recent examples of China and India, where foreign aid is a microscopic share of income. Both of these countries have been working their way out of poverty by increasing their own incomes by 183 percent and 84 percent, respectively, from 1995 to 2005 -- a feat fueled primarily by the energy, determination, and innovation of their own people, private investments, and wise policy and financial choices by their governments.

Africa needs investments that leave behind more than depleted mineral mines and dry oil wells. It needs investments that have a multiplier effect in terms of dollars spent and jobs created. New factories, new supply chains, distribution channels, improved infrastructure, better agricultural practices, and new markets will stimulate production and innovation in addition to consumption.

On the policy side, the continent needs governments that ensure that its natural resources and the increased tax receipts generated are used to build better schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, all of which are critical to economic development. Governments also have to ensure that those who create the wealth are entitled to retain rewards commensurate with the risks. In short, government should not treat its wealth creators as yet another "extractive" industry.

The best way for developed countries and other major emerging market countries to help Africa out of poverty is to pursue the same business- and market-driven approaches that have historically created, and continue to create, wealth in their own countries. As it turns out, opportunism, not compassion, may prove to be the most effective and sustainable driver of poverty alleviation in Africa.

Google's first entrepreneur-in-residence, Monique Maddy was born in Liberia and educated in England and the United States. She founded the African Communications Group to create low-cost wireless telecommunications services in developing and emerging market countries. She is an elite marathon runner and the author of Learning to Love Africa: My Journey from Africa to Harvard Business School and Back (2004).