I think there's more to it than that
There isn't enough political consciousness among their own people to sort out the dictators. You or I wouldn't be politically conscious either, if we didn't have enough to eat.
So until the dictators are sorted out (who, in a lot of cases, more or less deliberately starve people to bring in Pajero money foreign aid) they won't have enough to eat, and until they have enough to eat the dictators won't be sorted out.

We can't sort out the dictators without the support of the countries' people, because (a) that's fundamentally wrong and (b) if the people aren't happy enough to be vigilant, the new systems will quickly become just as corrupt as the old ones.

 
There's more to it than this, too.
( Newington, Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:26, archived)

Bring back the Empire I say
they didn't know how good they had it.
( Fenris temporary Lazarus, Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:33, archived)

Mykey?

( Johnny Catfish - Yowsa!, Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:42, archived)

I'm sure many people have dedicated their lives to understanding these problems,
so I think it goes without saying there's more to it than that, but my point was that the situations arise not solely because of Big Bad Greedy Rich countries (as some left-wingers will have you believe) nor because they're all semi-evolved savages who'd rather be eating each other than learning modern farming techniques and not having civil wars all the time (as Mykeyboy some right-wingers will have you believe).
( Mr. Tea 'ulmmm'/'mmneurgh', Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:34, archived)

It's a bit of both!

( Newington, Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:49, archived)

Although AIDS *is* their fault,
or at least the fault of whichever sick freak bummed a monkey...
( Mr. Tea 'ulmmm'/'mmneurgh', Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:51, archived)

In my more cynical moments
I say we do our best* to stop people starving, and leave the governments to it.
The stable state of humanity is either democracy, in which case they'll get there eventually, or dictatorship, in which case they're a few steps ahead of us already.

* edit: i.e., more than we're doing at the moment
( Newington, Tue 5 Jul 2005, 11:56, archived)

That assumes there is a stable state
evidence (even outside africa) tends to suggest otherwise.

/pessimist
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 5 Jul 2005, 12:02, archived)