Namely, the multinational corporations of the 1880's and on made such a mess of things that many of the countries now have very little infrastructure and spigot economies where multiple parties jockey for control of the natural resource(s) and hence power in the country.
Barring some sort of radical change, this situation isn't changing any time soon for most places.
The irony is (excepting south Africa and Egypt which have their own histories), the only stable countries where companies might be able to set up shop are the ones with no natural resources, because there's not much to fight over.