Africa is not a single entity, yet that is how the UN tries to treat them. 53 members providing 300 troops? 6 per country? 53 governments/competing interests? What can get them helping each other?
People treat Africa has a single entity because Americans believe that all black people are the same. Ignoring the fact that there is quite a bit of ethnic and cultural diversity within the African American community that most white people don't see, Americans seem to forget the problems that existed between European ethnic groups in the United States within the past century, where Northern Europeans fought to keep out Southern and Eastern Europeans because they were backward and the Irish were considered less than desirable (this situation is clumsily portrayed in Gangs of New York). It took white people a long time to get over their inter-ethnic prejudices (and they are still not entirely gone). But so long as you have Irish voting only for Irish candidates that will only help Irish neighborhoods at the expense of others or Serbians voting only for Serb candidates that will only help Serbs at the expense of others or Kikuyu who will only vote for Kikuyu candidates that will only help Kikuyu areas at the expense of others, then democracy isn't going to work very well. People need a national identity before they can have national electiosn. That's one of the biggest dangers in Iraq -- that people will vote tribally.