It's not Africans, it's just people. Westerners sell each other out to foreigners too. Just look at the history of Latin America. There are just far fewer foreigners with the relative wealth to buy off whole governments in MDCs. And in many cases our institutions developed to resist corruption before international finance made it so incredibly easy to accomplish.

The intentional abuses of colonization were vile, but the neglectful exploitation of decolonization has hardly been better.

I replied to another post below. People are just people, agreed. Impact of corruption on a developing nation is felt much more by the people. This is why Africans will risk their lives on rickety boats to get to Europe but Europeans haven't got to that stage yet.

If that's any consolation, I don't think that's only for Africans. You can see the same thing happening in Europe, the Americas and in Asia. Power corrupts. That's why our history is filled with stories about the powerful oppressing the weak, and our litterature is replete with upper-middle class characters struggling with the allure of power, resisting or giving in to the dehumanization aspects that occur all too easily.

I agree. People are just people.

I think we just at a different development stage. The impact of corruption in Africa is more acute. The West have been building hospitals and schools for centuries. We were late to the party. Corruption means we don't have essentials, hospitals, running water, schools. People end up dying of diseases that have cures because there is no medicine.

IMO I don't think its as simple as just building infrastructure, even though that's a significant part of it. One of the best things about Western society is that there is a certain amount of trust among the people, even strangers that seems to be very important to get things done. i.e. if I pay a contractor to fix my house, its very likely they will (if the problem is well known etc.). Even if the trust is misplaced, there is a good judicial system to resort to in egregious cases which keeps (most) bad behaviors/people in check. Cooperation among strangers is essential to the advancement of any society.

In most non-Western countries, this level of trust or belief/existence of the judicial system is absent. Which increases the risk exponentially of investing, working etc.

Now of course, you do need a good education system to provide lawyers/judges and people of every skill level to man these institutions and keep them from corruption. So it does seem like a somewhat cyclical problem.