Doesn't that only work if you first ensure that they will be able to use it before it is stolen from them?
Your comment on theft is spot on. The entire system starts and ends at strong rule of law coupled with a strong societal contract with private property. You don't have that in most of Africa. Even in the places the article mentions, it's hit or miss in practice. Giving money to women, or men, or children, or 3 legged camels with purple polka dots won't amount to a hill of beans without at least those two pillars in place.
And if those pillars are in place, and truly functional, giving away money won't work in any case. As doing so would make that nation dependent on your currency. Chinese, American or European. It's no coincidence that none of the ideas presented by "development experts" ever involve ideas that would make a sub-saharan African nation dependent only on itself, or other sub-saharan African nations. Where costs of trading have a chance in Hades of going down.
The cost of delivering a truck from the US or China is enormous. The only real way to bring that down is to manufacture it in sub-saharan Africa, and then drive it where it is needed. Anything less is just maintaining a steady flow of money and resources out of these nations.
Agreed. Yesterday I saw the question posed: "What is more important, property rights or human rights?" I decided that property rights is more important because, as you said, strong rule of law gives people confidence in building a societal contract with others that includes things like freedom of speech. That's what happened in Western civilization.
That said, even if you take as a given that property rights enable those other rights (certainly a contentious claim), it still seems like you're missing the point of the question. If you value the right of a person not to be murdered, more than you value the right of a person to own a factory and to pay people to work in it, you should just say so.