The IQ question remains till this day. Are they doing poorly because all of those poor nations have lower IQ or the lower IQ is an effect of poor economies. But then there's the ,,tropical climate effect" (not sure if it has a term (?)), where's all of the nations in warmer regions are messed up. Maybe both lower IQ and hot climate & russians with their terroristic organizations like vagner stealing Uranium.
I'm sure you all have heard the story of the African fisherman chatting with a western businessman? If not, here you go: A western businessman wanders on the beach of an African nation, sees a fisherman sitting, staring at the sea, relaxed. The businessman is intrigued and asks why he isn't fishing? The fisherman says, I have already gone at sea and have sold my fish at the market; now I enjoy looking at the sea. Puzzled, the westerner pushes further and suggests he could still be at sea and catch more fish, to make more money! The fisherman looks at this foreigner and asks why would he do that? Confident, the businessman says, well, you spend more time at sea, you bring in more fish to sell at the market and now you're wealthier and can buy another fishing boat and catch more fish. You can hire a crew to work for you so you can relax and stare at the sea! The point of the story, other than making fun of westerners, is that people adapt to their environments. Westerners have long ago determined that wealth is to be built and protected from others. We built castles, raised armies, delineated our lands with pickets, found the resources needed to build bigger and better, all in a never ending cycle of growth and domination. Eventually we created rules to govern relations, commerce and wars with each other. We took as much as land and sea could offer. Until we took too much. Those at the forefront of the studies looking at the impact of Man on the planet long ago warned us of the dangers ahead. But as long as danger doesn't hit us directly, there's no danger. Today, all of the people who spend time at sea or on land can tell us that what they experience today is not like how things were 20-30 years ago. It's not just the scientists anymore, it's become obvious to the neophyte nature lovers, farmers, fishermen... But there are many powerful interests who couldn't give 2 shits about the state of the planet and the environment, at least until they retire with their nice pensions. The spin to plant doubt, ridicule the doomsayers, question the research and buy the political support is in full swing. If only those environmentalists were all black, LGBTQ women it would be easy to piss on but, thankfully or unfortunately, it's become more and more difficult to dismiss the data. Some, mostly in Europe, are saying that it's not enough to switch to EVs, that atmospheric pollution is only a sign of excessive consumption and that true evil is consumerism. Humans need to consume less, far less as far as Americans are concerned. But that point, even if accurate, doesn't begin to understand America, the world's individualistic nation in which every person think they are MVP. No one who wants to stay alive is going to tell Americans that they are caricatures of the media they consume all day long, that their excesses are making everything else poorer. So much wasted potential. For those who don't know, the world doesn't want to be like America. People visit like they visit Disneyland. They used to come for the land of opportunity, the land where anyone could become anything if they worked hard enough. But that was 20 years ago. Today America is Karens, racism, violence, mass shootings. It's extremes going at each other, leaving no room for the America that once was. Going back to that really good Pinot Noir.
I know of at least one - Fiji. They requested Britain to colonize them, because they were afraid that the USA would colonize them right after the USA took over Hawaii.
First of all, while there are several truly depressed countries in Africa, one has to acknowledge that there are quite a few such as Botswana, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea that are doing quite well. Second, Ethiopia, which you showcase as an African country that is doing extremely poorly, is not only in the middle of the all African countries (33rd of 54) in terms of per capita GDP, it has a higher GDP than India which you praise as doing well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
%% Sounds like a big problem, the bigot subject will be addressed here also. The British[aka UK, sometimes aka colonizers] did a lot of good for Africa. Mr Musk is from there. But another big problem, the African natives are rightly bigoted against crop eating elephants. United Kingdom[aka colonizers] helped the bigoted natives solve thier big elephant problem. WD Bell helped out with his 7x.57 + .303 British/ the natives were excellent trackers. I checked Webster's dictionary to insure i used the word bigot rightly. Capitalism + related is so much better than communism+ propaganda. Good question schizo.
Ahhh the Whitewashing of all the negatives of Imperialism/Colonialism. Native Americans, ya know the ones who were here loooong before Columbus "discovered" this place - they understand that all too well.
Africa is a great example. The 2 countries in Africa that werent colonized were ethiopia and liberia. Both countries are violent and impoverished. The african countries that were colonized were in dramatically better shape than prior to colonization. However, after the colonies were given full infependence and turned over to the natives, the countries were ruined. Africa is a great example of a continent that REQUIRES colonization. Without it, they are lost.