Cuba tended to export many of its most highly educated people. I don't think the goal is to send the rural folk to fight in Africa.
[WS:] But they did that in Angola. I think it is the issue of salience - one 'exported' physician is more salient than 10 'exported' bumpkins providing manual labor or cannon fodder.
As for Cuba's Stalinist infrastructure, much of it was inappropriate after oil became tight. Frequently, tractors were idled while people turned to animal traction.
[WS:] That is an anomaly, temporary makeshift solution to an unexpected problem, from which you cannot generalize. BTW, a few years ago I heard a piece on the NPR about rail cars being pulled by human power in some part of Africa because of the shortage of locomotives there. Is that a way to go?
Wojtek