This is unfortunately also one of the biggest problems with donating to NGOs that operate in many foreign countries. Much of the aid money gets stolen by corrupt officials and local criminals. Donors have to check carefully that NGOs are legitimately benefiting the intended recipients.

> 1. Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it)

As a Brazilian with a love for electronics and DIY, I feel this pain every day.

> Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue (and then their corrupt representatives extract bribes on top of it)

being a developing country or not is orthogonal to what you have described. The top developed nations have one or more of these issues.

In regard to number 1, it really is such a hard problem to get money and aid to those that need it. Autocrats and every person with power along the way is happy to pocket it.

All governments.

And if you bypass their abuse, you're a "smuggler", shamed on by the press.

It’s crazy that it’s magnitudes cheaper for me from the EU to go to a poor country with non existing administration, than the people from there to come to the EU. And magnitudes more convenient. Just to get a passport; for me, it’s a nuance and it basically costs nothing; for a lot of people in those countries, it’s impossible to get one legally, and one costs 100s or 1000s of dollars illegally. And that’s just the passport, not the traveling itself.

> We are so spoiled in the West.

This can happen in the West too.

I volunteered at a homeless shelter, and we helped those who had lost everything get important documents like their Social Security card and s state ID, and the bureaucracy was atrocious. Sometimes we literally had to beg a senator's office to help.

At least they didn't ask for bribes, but I wonder if that would've made things easier.

I agree with the second point especially. What stood out to me was not just that Django endured the bureaucracy, but that he remained grateful and composed through it

>Never underestimate developing countries' governments' willingness to absolutely bend their people over to extract tax revenue

If there is anything characteristic of developing countries’ taxing systems, it would be how short reaching and inadequate it is. Many of these countries’ governments are corrupt, sure, but these small revenue extracting schemes are about the only way they can collect “taxes” at all.

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