For some in the Green Left, starving the Africans is the bottom line. They consider “overpopulation” the greatest threat facing the world, so if something “culls the surplus population,” it’s good in their eyes. Gates has funded population groups — but he is a heretic from the Green religion on this.
I think you’re right, they see starvation in Africa as having a useful purpose.
However, I think it goes beyond even that. The real Greenies hate humanity in general and everything they do is directed at returning us to the dark ages, with their famine and disease, hoping that this will exterminate the human race altogether. While they may be considered “extreme environmentalists,” there are more of them than you think, and they have gotten a lot of power. IIRC, one of Bambi’s advisors referred to humanity as a “cancer on the face of the earth.” And I’m sure the NGO’s are stuffed with them.
Africa is just the first step.