The article gives recommendations based on the African Development Forum (ADF) agreements on how Africa’s development can be maximised, without the continent having to look overseas for assistance. The forum agreed that aid is no longer the panacea to the development of Africa; if Africa must develop, it has to help itself. The continent has to curb illicit financial flows first. The continent must embark on reforms to capture currently unexplored or poorly managed resources. This includes curtailing illicit financial flows and rather transforming those funds into a powerful tool for enhancing domestic resource mobilization, as a way of furthering the continent’s development. Curtailing illicit financial flows and transforming funds into a powerful tool for enhancing domestic resource mobilization, as a way of furthering the continent’s development. It also undermines Africa’s ability to mobilize resources generated by such sectors to fund developmental goals. To tackle the issue of illicit financial flows and the dynamics that drive them, transparency in revenue declaration and payments from multinational corporations would have to be improved, tax haven regulations and secrecy jurisdictions tightened and efforts to curb money laundering strengthened, as a way of retrieving diverted money and spending it on poverty reduction and economic growth activities.