Two main takeaways:
1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it)
2. Django's gratitude and positivity in the face of all of it is an inspiration. I suspect I and most everyone I know would be in tears and would have given up in exasperation halfway through his quest. We are so spoiled in the West.
This is unfortunately also one of the biggest problems with donating to NGOs that operate in many foreign countries. Much of the aid money gets stolen by corrupt officials and local criminals. Donors have to check carefully that NGOs are legitimately benefiting the intended recipients.
"much" is an unqualified and unjustified word here. It definitely happens but this would at most affect a tiny fraction of donor money.
Many of the NGOs have strict no-bribery policies, else they would not receive support from bodies like the EU (which is the biggest humanitarian donor on the planet).
In some cases the choice may be between "letting people starve" and "feeding people but the local warlord extracts some benefits" but these are rare and only the worst crisis contexts (think South Sudan, DRC).
>a tiny fraction of donor money.
that is not what happened for example in Gaza. UNRWA sent billions to Gaza where that aid was hijacked by HAMAS, and even when the aid was distributed to people outside of HAMAS, HAMAS directly controlled the distribution of that aid. And i don't see UN operating any different at the other places too.
Or like Rubio said:
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/10/24/unrwa-is-subsidiary-...
"U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of being “a subsidiary of Hamas” "
UNRWA sustains life in Gaza.
HAMAS mostly exists in Gaza.
Therefore UNRWA perhaps sustains HAMAS by delaying the indiscriminate mass murder of Gazans through manmade famine.
I don't really see how this would make UNRWA a subsidiary of HAMAS even if it happened to be true that the existence of HAMAS was predicated on the existence of UNRWA.
In practice, the only way to prevent this aid from reaching HAMAS is to prevent it from reaching anyone in Gaza.
Even if we go with your logic, what you described is HAMAS using Gazans as hostage - HAMAS threatening "the indiscriminate mass murder of Gazans through manmade famine" until the aid is given to and through HAMAS (and by using civilian population that way HAMAS does commit a crime against humanity). In such a case UNRWA at least should have publicly stated the issue and let the UN as a whole to decide. Quietly sending the aid to HAMAS makes UNRWA at minimum an accomplice. Financing a terrorist organization in response to its blackmail is pretty much a crime almost everywhere. And given the number of UNRWA employees being HAMAS members, some even openly participated in Oct 7 attack, it is definitely more than just an accomplice.
>UNRWA sustains life in Gaza.
and that doesn't seem true to me. Looking at pre-war Gaza - it seems that the regular Gazans have existed on their own, not much affected by UNRWA. There were businesses, trade, construction, some worked in Israel. Look at pre-war satellite photos - how much solar panels were on roofs there. I remember some Gazans even started to appear here on HN. And there was HAMAS fed by UNRWA. Removing HAMAS from the equation, there pretty much wouldn't be a need for UNRWA.
Imagine if Putin's war made ordinary Russians (not the top elites) go hungry, and Putin said that any humanitarian aid must go to Kremlin and they'll distribute it. How many people will say "yeah, it's a manmade murder of Russians and we need to give Putin what he wants".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas#Use_... (Revision https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israeli_support_f...)
Debates
Use of Hamas to undermine the Palestinian Authority
In an interview with Israeli journalist, Dan Margalit in December 2012, Netanyahu told Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu also added that having two strong rivals, this would lessen pressure on him to negotiate towards a Palestinian state.[10] In an interview with the Israeli Army Radio in August 2019, Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001, said that Netanyahu's main strategy is to keep Hamas "alive and kicking" in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority, even at the expense of "abandoning the citizens [of the south]."[41] In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas", before adding that "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."[42]
At a Likud party conference in 2019, Netanyahu said: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."[43][44] Netanyahu responded to the accusations of funding and strengthening Hamas by calling them "ridiculous".[45] In an interview with Time in 2024, he denied of giving support to Hamas and said that it was one of "many misquotes" attributed to him.[46]
Gershon Hacohen, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade and an associate of Netanyahu, said in 2019 in an interview: "Netanyahu's strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it's an ally."[47][48] Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawmaker and finance minister under the Netanyahu government, called the Palestinian Authority a "burden" and Hamas an "asset".[49][50] Allegations of Israeli support for the creation of Hamas
Yuval Diskin, former director of Shin Bet from 2005 to 2011, told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013, that "if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas's strengthening has been Bibi (Benjamin) Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister."[41][51] In October 2023, former Intelligence Chief of Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, accused Israel of "funnelling Qatari money" to Hamas.[52]
On 19 January 2024, Reuters reported that Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said while receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Valladolid that "Israel had financed the creation of Palestinian militant group Hamas, publicly contradicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has denied such allegations." and that "Borrell added the only peaceful solution included the creation of a Palestinian state. 'We only believe a two-state solution imposed from the outside would bring peace even though Israel insists on the negative,' he said."[53][54][55] Borrell also described Israel as having "created Hamas", but immediately continued saying that "yes, Hamas was financed by Israel to weaken the Palestinian Authority".[b]
Professor Avner Cohen, publicly acknowledged that "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation" and that Israel had "encouraged them as a counterweight to ... Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah."[61] David Hacham, who worked in Gaza as an Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military in the late 1980s and early 1990s stated, "When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake. But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results."[62] Similar statements have been made by Yasser Arafat. For example, in an interview with Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera in December 2001, he referred to Hamas as a "creature of Israel".[63][64] Use of Hamas as a tool to disengage from peace talks
Shlomo Brom [he], retired general and former deputy to Israel's national security adviser, believes that an empowered Hamas helps Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu avoid negotiating over a Palestinian state, suggesting that there is no viable partner for peace talks.[10]
Israeli strategy of splitting the enemy into smaller pieces is a classic military strategy well known for millennia.
The question here is who made Gazans prefer HAMAS over PA? And why would HAMAS and PA be enemies to each other instead of allies?
Yes, but it's important to note that just because a lot of aid is ineffective doesn't mean it all is. If you want to give to very poor people and be confident most (85%+) actually gets to them I encourage you to take a look at https://www.givedirectly.org/. Full disclosure, I'm an unpaid trustee of the UK sister charity
I do some work in Africa and that's not what i've seen. The NGOs have their own separate supply chains and are quite resistant to corrupt officials and local criminals. The problem with NGOs is that they're mostly regular business masquerading as 'aid' and out competing local businesses who dont have access to their infrastructure and subsidies. There's actually much more demand for NGOs from the West than from their recipients. African governments are trying to clamp down on NGOs, but there's a lot of pressure from the west for the status quo.
If the implication is true…
Shouldn’t people stop helping further entrench these shady practices?
If Ugandan decision makers know the people will effectively always be underwritten to receive some bread and water… no matter what happens…
Then what exactly is stopping them from piling on more and more nonsense?
The boundary on this is kind of fuzzy. You obviously wouldn't donate if 100% of it was stolen, but also if you wait until the world is in a perfected state before helping anyone you'll never help anyone.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, but what I've decided works for me personally is supporting a handful of hyper-focused charities that run very lean in terms of western staff and employ local skilled labour.
One example is the Canadian charity One4Another which performs surgeries to reverse some common birth defects in kids and babies in Uganda. They're not trying to feed the world, they're not interfering with the local economy; in fact they're employing doctors and nurses to perform a one-time intervention that changes the life of thousands of kids a year in the catchment area of their facility.
Obviously there are things that a group like this can't do but a massive NGO can, and that's great too, but for what I have to give, I feel very good about the impact per dollar of this.
OP is talking about corrupt officials, not charity workers, so how does "running lean" evade or obviate corruption?
Edit: my point is just that bribery and blackmail aren't the same as Global Northerners treating charities as synecures.
Yes, fair, maybe it doesn't. But I think several factors do work in favour of the smaller organization in terms of it being a smaller target, having the operation based more on local relationships and trust networks, and being accountable for an overall smaller budget— it's harder to ignore 10k in bribes of if it's only half a million or so per year coming in from the west.
Anyway as I say it's not everything but I thought it seemed relevant to the GP post talking about NGOs and charity efficiency.
Better 20% of your money reaches a starving child than 0%.
You have no way to know its higher than zero though
You are right, the downvotes people gave this comment are wrong, the replies to you are wrong. Feeding evil in the hopes you will also feed a little good is not only bad morally, but bad practically, bad in a utilitarian calculus, and just dumb.
Which is why, naturally, the American Red Cross is the gold standard for NGO donation efficiency.
You're joking about this right? An old colleague did a lot of work with them and he told me how incredibly corrupt they are and to stay away.
Yeah, they were sarcastic.
They can’t even operate efficiently in the USA was that intended as sarcasm
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...
Please don't be sarcastic here.
No thank you.
Do you mean the ICRC?
A polished website and audited reports don't always tell you whether aid is reaching people effectively on the ground
> 1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it)
As a Brazilian with a love for electronics and DIY, I feel this pain every day.
the 80% tax on electronics since the 80s was because brazil had a few chip foundries.
two of them started cloning cpus designs (8080 and 68k iirc). they sold well all over the (1st and 2nd) world (still no local market). until one company did a publicity stunt lying they had a full mac clone (it was an actual mac, but they did have something else).
then apple and others pressured the US state department, which pressured the brazilian gov with tarifs on oranges (most of the new elite created in the millitary coups were now big land owners and orange was the cash crop). They were so afraid of the tarifs that they closed both factories as requested, and added the import tax as a good will gesture on top!
and many (30%) brazilians today think another military coup will sort things out
Forgive me, I'm unclear on one thing -- the import tax was added as a goodwill gesture? To whom? I mean, who was this done to placate? Not the US companies, and not the closed factories, right?
I was going to snidely ask what Argentina's excuse was for its import tax on electronics, but it's been a decade since I lived there, and it appears they dropped the tariff to zero at the start of this year (2026). Really, talk about holding your economy back for the wrong reasons: Making it wildly expensive for people to get the tools they need to bring money into the local economy. Besides, all it did was open a black market.
Did you guys got your eletronics from Paraguay too?
I wish we replace this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Duke_of_Caxias with a statue of a smuggler bringing computers from paraguay (they where sold two streets down this statue). It is much more heroic and positive outcome symbol to the country than some old military nobody on a horse.
Haha that's not a bad idea for a statue ;)
I'm a US citizen so it wasn't that bad for me unless I needed replacement parts without physically traveling to get them. We would just trade gifts of laptops with people when anyone was going to the US, but nothing in new packaging. At that time IIRC there was a $500 limit on how much Argentines could spend on a bank card outside the country for the entirety of a trip abroad, and obviously cash controls to prevent taking cash out and import controls on anything you brought in. The normal pattern for rich Argentines was to go to Miami and open a US bank account, then use that to buy stuff and bring it into the country in your suitcase. Fueling that US bank account was where things got very interesting (and also was the best use case I've seen for cryptocurrency, where someone in BsAs would take your cash, buy local Bitcoin with it, send the Bitcoin to their partner in Miami, who would change it to USD and deposit it in your bank account there). It was a clever economy.
Heh, Northern Spaniards as me would have a longass trip to Andorra to get tax-free devices. And some people in the Castilles/Galicia did the same... in Portugal.
I've never been to Andorra but it seems very strange, like a few streets shopping mall / free trade zone?? I've heard from Spaniards about going there and they said it's not a good place to go on vacation lol
It was a place to get cheap electronics, tobaco and alcohol because of being a tax haven. OFC it was forbidden to get an amount of goods over an X quantity because you could have been fined as a smuggler.
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> Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it)
being a developing country or not is orthogonal to what you have described. The top developed nations have one or more of these issues.
Developed countries may have exorbitant taxes and fees, but generally not bribes.
Someone may say "a tax or fee is just a legalized bribe to the state!"
Which, sure, you could look at it that way, but it's codified and predictable and that lack of surprise is extremely valuable.
Man, I am a native Spaniard and even with Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and industrial powerhouses we can't compete with furthern North Italy/Germany/Netherlands in some areas, but I've heard horror stories from Latin America that wouldn't happen in Spain without making the news.
In regard to number 1, it really is such a hard problem to get money and aid to those that need it. Autocrats and every person with power along the way is happy to pocket it.
It seems like GiveDirectly has figured it out somehow?
All governments.
And if you bypass their abuse, you're a "smuggler", shamed on by the press.
It’s crazy that it’s magnitudes cheaper for me from the EU to go to a poor country with non existing administration, than the people from there to come to the EU. And magnitudes more convenient. Just to get a passport; for me, it’s a nuance and it basically costs nothing; for a lot of people in those countries, it’s impossible to get one legally, and one costs 100s or 1000s of dollars illegally. And that’s just the passport, not the traveling itself.
To me that doesn't sound crazy, it's just about the fact that even being homeless in Amsterdam or something is a much easier life than what's available to a commoner in a good portion of sub-Saharan Africa. If it was incredibly simple to get a "tourist visa" for people from developing countries, Europe would have even more people just showing up and never leaving than they already do today.
Whatever one thinks about the overall subject of migrants, I think one can at least agree with these two things:
1. We won't fix poverty and corruption in the developing world by everyone there just jumping to the nearest 'rich' country.
2. Once migrants are in the 'rich' country, it's more controversial and difficult to force them to go back home than it is to not enable them to come in the first place.
> We are so spoiled in the West.
This can happen in the West too.
I volunteered at a homeless shelter, and we helped those who had lost everything get important documents like their Social Security card and s state ID, and the bureaucracy was atrocious. Sometimes we literally had to beg a senator's office to help.
At least they didn't ask for bribes, but I wonder if that would've made things easier.
I was once asked to look at some letters by a reasonably fresh immigrant coworker. (He learned the language and found a job in a few months which to me should be all we needed from him) He brought a 1980 style stack of paper 30cm thick and it was all in legalese mixed with gibberish. Apparently some entities missed their deadline, triggered an investigation and a fine in a process that also missed it's deadline which triggered a different process looking for someone to blame. Other stuff was going on too, like a half finished immigration process in a different EU country.
I asked another Dutch co-worker to help look at it. We pretty much couldn't make sense of the last letters. No idea what he had to do next. We joked that if we got that much corospondence we would flee the country.
A few months later he moved to Canada.
I agree with the second point especially. What stood out to me was not just that Django endured the bureaucracy, but that he remained grateful and composed through it
>Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue
If there is anything characteristic of developing countries’ taxing systems, it would be how short reaching and inadequate it is. Many of these countries’ governments are corrupt, sure, but these small revenue extracting schemes are about the only way they can collect “taxes” at all.
“Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue” Democratic Party city and state governments in the US: “HOLD MY BEER”
Sources:
1. Virginia Democratic governor less than 24 hours after becoming governor: https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/virginia-new-gover...
2: Seattle collectivist “my parents still pay for my cell plan since I have never had a real job” mayor: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2025/11/14/seattle-...
3: NY new socialist wannabe Palestinian liberator mayor: https://nypost.com/2026/04/10/us-news/mamdani-pushed-combine...
4: California “I hate liars” liar and “Free 10x cost Diapers for everyone” Newsom government proposals: https://nypost.com/2026/02/12/us-news/californians-have-just...
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What does this reddit-esque whataboutism add..?
EU just implemented a new customs tax law that will be coming to member states on july 1st.
Until now, items below 150eur (bought by private citizens) were not a subject to customs, and some time ago not even for VAT if below 22eur. From july 1st, it's becoming painful, in slovenia for example, 3eur per TARIC code + customs fee + vat.
So, for example you go on alixpress, you buy a silicone phone case for 1eur, a screen protector/foil for 1eur, a phone "sock" for 1eur and a stylus for 1 eur (+whatever shipping, often free).
A few years ago, you'd pay 4eur and get the package. Then they implemented IOSS, so aliexpress has to report the 4eur order to EU, and they charge you 22% VAT on that, so you'd pay 4.88eur directly to aliexpress and they'd pay the tax. Ok, a bit more expensive but doable, unless you want to go outside of eu and order the stuff there and just bring it in with you.
And now? Since they're 4 different items, that's 4 TARIC codes, and that's 3eur per each separate item, so that makes 4eur for items themselves, 4x3eur for customs (16eur together with the item price), then you pay VAT on the full price (including customs!), that makes it 19.52eur + whatever the post office decides to charge for "processing" (used to be ~4-5euros, but usually avoided by aliexpress shippers).
So, instead of 4euros, you'll pay 20-25euros for the same thing, the government taking 20 euros of tax on 4euros of items (even less total worth, aliexpress + chinese shipping has to earn their share too).
I mean sure, they want you to buy locally from dropshippers, but it's still cheaper than that, or from amazon, which will probably be the biggest winner here, and it's not even a european company.
Local sellers absolutely get shafted by cheap subsidised stuff from China. It creates a fairer environment. It also discourages ultra-cheap overconsumption, reduces counterfeit and unsafe products entering the market. You might not like it but there are good reasons for it.
I'm not saying it's perfect, it's not how I would have done it if I was a benevolent dictator, but there are good reasons for it.
All local sellers do is buy the stuff from China and stick a huge markup on it. That’s what they did in the past before the days of AliExpress. It benefits the wealthy, in spite of the poor, like everything these days. It’s not something to be celebrated.
But we don't make phone cases in EU. Neither most of the stuff actually sold by aliexpress. Our local "phone case stands" in shopping centers sell the same cheap made-in-china stuff as on aliexpress but they want 15-20euros for the same cheap case that is 1eur on aliexpress (+10-15 for the screen protector, etc). I mean sure, they have to pay rent for the space and they have to pay the worker, but they're just a middle man, they produce no real value (except to get the case faster).
So, back then, i'd pay 1eur and get the case (a bit later 1eur+vat), or 4eur (+vat) for all the items. I'd have money left over, that I could spend at a local restaurant, where other people would get paid, for cooking and serving me a meal (and farmers before that). (i won't give the "save to buy an apartment" example, because none of the EU states is actually doing anything to make that peossible for normal people, quite the opposite).
And now I either pay a lot more money to the government (and get notting more back from them), pay a lot of money to a reseller/dropshipper, and get the item a week earlier than from aliexpress. There will be no european phone case company to take over that business, the just 'stuff' will be just more expensive, and we, europeans, will be able to afford less.
And yes, I know, aliexpress will adapt, they'll build warehouses in EU, and iphone cases will be shipped from romania or hungary or somewhere, but they'll still be more expensive. And that's just phone cases... if you have an iphone, you'll find them in aliexpress warehouses locally. But what if you want custom electronics only found on aliexpress? Some niche esp32 board? Some salved controller for a retro computer? Can you count on aliexpress storing those things in EU too? Or will your other hobbies become much more expensive too?
We absolutely make phone cases in the EU, I looked up where I bought mine and it was a Slovenian company even: mmore.net - there are others. Can we make them for 1 euro? No, but, for example, less than 20 euros for a biodegradable phone case made in EU is an okay price with which I can support someone with a good idea and a "local", at least European business.
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Most African countries were decolonized at the same time as Singapore.
How long will the white man be blamed for every single thing happening in Africa today? Will a century be enough? 200 years? More?
Aren't Africans adults with agency who are ultimately responsible for the state of their countries?
Are you under the impression that western activity in Africa ceased with the end of colonialism? No fomented coups, conflicts, revolutions, arms and funding for rebel groups, continuous bribes and support to corrupt government officials to secure the flow of oil, minerals, etc. out of those countries into western hands? No proxy wars between the west and the USSR?
Read more about the history of the continent.
Like you should stop blaming someone half way beating you up.
Running away seems a valid option. Europe seems a good place to run to. Who would have thought.
Africa is a continent. Be specific which countries and what coups and revolutions.
If I look at a country like Zimbabwe, it’s in worse shape than when it became independent and the West had not interfered. If anything it supported it with development funds.
What, lol? You want me to write a comprehensive account of each country in Africa that had foreign interventions and enumerate them? What’s the character limit for comments on HN, how many full comments do you think I’d need to get to something approaching comprehensiveness?
Zimbabwe, we’re talking about the one that had China, USSR and SA providing weapons and training up until the end of Rhodesia around 1980? Then IMF/World Bank imposed market liberalization in the 90s, then sanctions from 2002-2024?
Truly, can’t understand why they’d be in bad shape, must be all their own fault. My brilliant white brain thinks it must be something genetic, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink.
No, but it would just be nice to be specific in your claims and not make blanket claims which clearly aren’t true.
As for Zimbabwe, nobody forced them to ally with the USSR and China. That was their decision. As was their agreement with the IMF.
It’s not great to infantalize nations like Zimbabwe and act like they have no agency. They fought for their independence, got it and made their own bed.
Woah, nobody was talking about race here, why are you suddenly bringing it up?
Oh, interesting, because you're treating time and ethnicity, as the only factors in economic development. If you take a country full of Ugandans, and a country full of Singaporeans (the countries in your theory are the same of course), and terminate "colonization" (which is the same thing everywhere) at roughly the same time, if the Singaporeans do better, that means the Ugandans are... stupider? Less good at capitalism? What's your full, stated theory here? Can you please say it outright?
Anyway, you're ignoring a lot of other relevant factors. The two countries decolonized at roughly the same time, however Singapore is a tiny maritime city-state, whereas Uganda is a large, landlocked, agrarian country, and its agrarian economy completely taken over by cash crops.
Btw it's also a bit bizarre that you're just saying, "Africans." Africa is a huge continent with wildly different ecologies and economies across it. Regardless, Ugandans do indeed have agency, and that agency is the same as anyone's agency: operating within the constraints into which they were born.
It doesn't need to have anything to do with race. Things happen for incredibly complex reasons.
Overall, bad people try to seize power -- that's a constant the world over since bad people will always exist and they have less moral inhibitions than anyone else. It takes a lot of good luck, courage, and a tremendous amount of organization[1] for good people (or more commonly, people who are at least not outright bad) to prevent it -- and even more of those to reverse it once it's happened. And the struggle will never end.
Bad and incompetent people mismanage everything since their only priority is self-enrichment and power, so because they won most of the struggles in the poor countries, very little has improved for the common man compared to what should have been possible.
The only way that things will improve in those countries will probably involve tremendous bloodshed - revolutions. The leaders who can't or purposely won't let commoners share in what wealth is available aren't going to just spontaneously abdicate.
I want to point out that I actually don't blame Ugandans or any other poor-country commoners for not overthrowing their corrupt overlords. If and when they do, it will require a tremendous sacrifice of lives to achieve it. I know I would personally not have the cojones to charge the palace armed with rocks and clubs -- whether I had a crowd of 10,000 other freedom fighters behind me or not. I'd just deal with the banal bullshit of the regime and make the best of it to avoid the high likelihood of getting shot.
[1] by this I mean the organization of a good government system -- a constitution for example and empowered courts and law enforcement to actually enforce it. Or in its absence, organization among incredibly-brave individuals to build their own system that can outmaneuver the bad leaders.
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What's the solution?
Arguably, just to leave them alone, neither exploiting nor trying to "help". It sucks and it hurts, but outside interference does not seem to help a society heal itself. This has been argued by more informed people than myself-- https://www.uvm.edu/~jashman/CDAE195_ESCI375/To%20Hell%20wit...
That’s true in order to truly change a society you have to no longer be an outsider, but that’s a level of entanglement that NGOs rarely do now adays.
The ones that do it though are all religious institutions so their goals are more social/moral rather than economic or geopolitical.
Have you seen how active China and to some degree Russia have been in Africa? When there is vacuum someone will fill it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47978386
What would help is to buy their products and resources for a fair price.
How do you determine what's a fair price?
Sometimes it's hard but with things like gold it's pretty obvious.
Who's currently getting a below-market deal on gold from Africa?