That combined with the fact that there is no culture of maintaining things at a community level. People from first world countries come in and build bridges/wells/etc and then they break down due to misuse or just age and there is no effort to maintain them, due to the ingrained culture that's taught from birth.
The USA has spent billions of dollars in the last century on trying to help African countries, but all it's realistically really led to is just more people in need in Africa. What happens to all those people that have become dependant on the aid when the US economy crumbles and there is no more money to send overseas?
The HDI of African countries generally has gone up since the 90's (although not all countries):
https://statbase.org/datasets/indexes-and-ratings/human-deve...
Western people suggesting Africa is an un-helpable backwater has been common for decades. Bill Gates likes to talk about all the progress made, in fact.
I don't know if you've seen the USA in the past few decades but there's no culture of maintaining things at a community level here either. We've got infrastructure crumbling all over the place.
“My pothole takes a month to get fixed” != “My community has no power or drinking water”
In the US it's not potholes at issue, it's major bridges on crucial transport corridors being well past their use by dates and not being funded to replace / upgrade / maintain etc.
Please don't trivialise: https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering...
You're correct that this inability to upkeep infrastructure is in stark contrast to those many places about the globe that have never had electricity or water delivered to home dwellings.
Such places typically get by generation to generation and look after what they do have .. and are often removed as communities from what outsiders seeking local community resources see as necessary to support the take over of local community and imposition of third party extraction.
You're correct that China hires US PMC's to secure the take over of generational land rights and build roads to export "water" in the form of agricultural products, etc. You're correct that local communities see unsecured roads as a resource of good gravel, etc to be used.