Many of those places had any cultural or political capital that could help them systematically stripped out by Western colonialists, and most of the current African nations are descended from colonies whose borders were specifically drawn to make it impossible for the colonies to be effectively governed without the interference of the imperialists. The colonialists fomented ethnic strife and internal turmoil on purpose to make their job of exploiting Africa easier.
I don't disagree in the least. It's disgusting to see the kind of hole that overbearing imperialism dug for them. But at the same time, it's hard to draw the line of responsibility. At the end of the day, you could sling blame around for years and nothing good would ever come of it. Eventually, some people are going to have to say enough is enough, quit blaming things, and work to fix them. And the people over there that are suffering are going to have to help themselves. Sick of the dictators? Get rid of them. Plenty of middle eastern countries have gotten sick of being oppressed by brutality. Stop letting them steal your food, stop letting them steal your money, stop letting them sell your land's exploitation rights to international corporations. Ask for help doing all of that if you need to. When the dictators are gone and someone sane is in control, then that aid that the rest of the world sends can actually get to where it's supposed to go. I realize that it's incredibly easy for me to sit here and say this, staring at a computer screen instead of down the barrel of guns held by the death squads over there. But I think it's doing more harm than good for us to keep blindly sending whatever we can think of over there. It creates an equilibrium based on dependency and passivity.
I want you to replace every instance of references to them and others in your post with references to citizens of the United States, and then let me know how all of that "just get up and do it and ask for help if you need to" is going there.
Seriously - massive systemic social problems are not solved simply by saying "stop." There are huge forces at play, just like there is a massive system that prevents the US from suddenly creating better economic conditions. That system encompasses the social, historical, political, and economic reality of a country.
I agree that aid needs to be directed and accounted for, but the problem is most decidedly not the fact that many of these nations receive too much aid funding.
