As someone who has spent some time in sub-saharan Africa, I can tell you that there is lots that can be done if just seeing the possibilities.

Not everyone everywhere are "engineering oriented", and having people with the skills and eye for practical solutions based on available materials, can help tons, and also open up people's imagination for what can be done.

In fact, this goes for northern Europe too, just that more people can manage without home-built solutions and can "buy away the problem" here.

Also, people where immensely thankful e.g. when my quite clever and crafty father managed to repair a water tank tower that'd been broken for months and years, by sourcing some local material, coming up with a repair design, and having local welders create it, etc etc.