That's nice words. In effect, it turned out to be about giving Western companies better access to local markets, capitalising on legacy dependency. But whatever the reasoning, the lethal effect on local population is the same.

If Niger is still exporting food

Not Niger, traders. (If the specifics are important, let's read with precision.) You understand, private enterprise.

- what is the income derived being used for?

That's irrelevant. Whether that income is turned back into the economy or spent on luxury (which means that ultimately the money goes back to us in the West) or gets lost in corruption, people will starve. (Unless you use money from selling food to buy food for food distribution, which doesn't make any sense.)

Is there an internal tribal/class/elite structure whereby some starve and some are relatively well off?

I refer you back to the article. The problem is that the poorest can't afford food at market prices, even subsidized prices.

Are their huge internal inefficiencies, waste, corruption, and lack of planning?

That's again irrelevant. As I said, upon Western demands, planning already in place was abolished.

Are there projects in train which can improve the overall productive capacity and income distribution of the economy?  

That's again irrelevant. Wait, no: if such projects would not be in place, Western demands of neoliberal reform are knowingly putting locals at risk.

blanket assertions that "its all the West's fault"

You saw no such blanket assertion above, neither from me nor in the quoted articles. You saw quite specific points based on a real-world example. Meanwhile, what I saw from you were blanket assertions (or at least the insinuation of blanket assertions in the form of questions) without any use of evidence.

help to resolve the problem

I'm talking about a problem caused by the West, a minor shortage that wouldn't have turned into a famine without Western intervention, all this while ostensibly working on resolving earlier problems - at their own terms.

the whole point of development is to devolve responsibility, power and capability to the the local polity.

Prescribing economic policy is no devolution of responsibility, power and capability. It's the seizure of them.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}