Of course when the voters knowingly elect corrupt leaders, it's on them. But unfortunately many countries lack a good free press that informs people about the corruption of their leaders. Or they lack a sufficient education for the people to hold their leaders accountable.
However, I am familiar with a "reasonably corrupt" country, where deep hatred of the political class is radical, and I can tell you that the population is as much corrupted as the political class, just, in smaller scale.
I am also familiar with a "reasonably uncorrupted" country, where there isn't a radical hatred towards the political class, and interestingly, the population is significantly more orderly and civil than the former.
In this perspective, I'm very skeptical about the long-term advantages of money transfers when compared to social/infrastructural investments.
Still, I do want banks and other moneylenders to take more responsibility for who they're loaning money to, and what's being done with that money. And I think it's unfair to punish people for having lived under a bad government they had no control over. It seems attractive to combine those two goals.
But money spent on improving the lives of the people, through infrastructure, education and medicine, is (almost?) always money well-spent.
Ultimately it's a question of default. Is default worth it or not? Do creditors agree that the new state deserves new loans after defaulting on predecessor's loans.
I can't find the exact quote now, unfortunately.
If you consider the most hated politician in the UK, Tony Bliar, he netted a personal fortune of estimated £20m. That’s a tiny fraction of what a dictator could amass in a far poorer country.
This type of statement is a logical fallacy (I'd like to know if it's formalized, and if so, what's the name), and I think it's one of the most common: "There is X in any country".
Of course there is X in any country, but can be a radically different quantity and quality of X between two countries.
In the Jeffrey Sachs model.