Yep, I think that the food supply is the most important component in these countries. Which unfortunately often goes hand in hand with corrupted govts.

Corrupted health care system inaccessible to millions is just another hurdle. As an example, I posted a chart of prevalence of obesity and death rates from obesity in some countries some days ago, and while the likelihood of being obese is very low in Africa, it is way more likely to die from it once someone is obese.

And there are regional conflicts and wars that I believe also contributed to the result.

There is a stark difference between North Africa and sub Saharan Africa

Algeria was a French colony until 1950, I forget the exact date. I guess all of Africa were colonies of England, Dutch, Portugal, Belgium, etc

The Roman Empire had contact with North Africa such as the Punic wars but not sub Saharan