Dumb question but are there NGOs that also hand them AK-47 and show them how to defend themselves? You can't give people infrastructure in a place with no effective government and expect them to defend it with pleasant words. If you have nice things you have to also have a plan to defend nice things by the sword, if you do not you're actually inviting terrible things to happen. A lot of these NGO seem to focus on holistic approach, education, female empowerment but that's worth exactly 0 (actually, less than zero) if your community cannot defend itself and the next bumfuck warlord can just stroll into your now rather interesting town and rape everyone, off the men, and take all the shit.

Also I don't understand why, but your comment defaults to collapsed. That is a shame as it's highly relevant.

that is so evil.

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?

Not OP, but I would personally say that it starts with improving behaviour through laws.

Once people stop becoming role models for poor behaviour then attitudes improve as the population sees them as equals.

See racial equality for similar examples. This is why the Conservative movements want to make sure they crack down on trans-rights early. If they let rules come in, then acceptance becomes mainstream.

To invest, you literally have to come in with a security team / truckload of weapons or someone is paid (Wagner / Chinese government) to do it. The invested operation has to be vertically integrated with hand-picked assets, human resources, and supply chain. Very difficult situation to do in a way where the general populace benefits. In cases like Zimbabwe where farmers came in and did sustained investment, it did work having the tribal populace as helping hands but as soon as the reigns were handed over they immediately gutted everything and it went to shit followed by hyperinflation and mass starvation.

Very difficult problem that no one has really figured out. Kenya and Rwanda some of the more interesting leading edges in sub-saharan mainland africa as far as economics are looking.

The West has a pathological fear of being seen as neo colonial.

It's quite funny that in many African countries they still use infrastructure that was built in the days of colonialism.

“Gender projects” change cultural norms, and don’t have ongoing variable costs. They just need to be funded long enough for the effects to be percolated throughout the community and become sticky.

Education projects require ongoing variable costs such as teachers, books, resources, etc. Even if the results are effective in the short term, once funding dries up for the variable costs the community can’t sustain the ongoing investment and as the parent says, all you have left are the fixed cost artifacts like schoolhouses but no funding to sustain the variable costs necessary to utilize it as a schoolhouse.

Investing in women is much more effective because they are usually more attached to their community and can’t up and leave nearly as easily (both because they are the primary ones taking care of their own families)

That's the point. You will work to consume till you die or at least until they don't need you anymore

It seems to be the combination of both #1, #2 plus every tech bro billionaires attempts to "make the world a better place". An urban population full of disconnected people too mentally and financially worn out to procreate paradoxically appears to be our definition of success. What are we succeeding at? That, I haven't worked out.