That’s true in order to truly change a society you have to no longer be an outsider, but that’s a level of entanglement that NGOs rarely do now adays.

The ones that do it though are all religious institutions so their goals are more social/moral rather than economic or geopolitical.

Have you seen how active China and to some degree Russia have been in Africa? When there is vacuum someone will fill it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47978386

What would help is to buy their products and resources for a fair price.

How do you determine what's a fair price?

Sometimes it's hard but with things like gold it's pretty obvious.

Who's currently getting a below-market deal on gold from Africa?

A local director of a gold mine here in Tanzania told me that all the profits of the mine go to the owners in China. I don't know how much profit they are making, but if Tanzania as a country does not benefit from the mines then the deal is better than it should be.